Blog Archives

Is reading onscreen different to reading in print?

27/2/2017

This month, my book group is reading George Eliot’s Romola. As out-of-copyright books often come in tiny print, I didn’t want to order a paperback and, by the time I got round to consulting the local library catalogue, it was too late to order it from a distant branch. So I did a very rare thing for me – actually Mr A kindly did it on my behalf – and downloaded the free digital version to read on his tablet.

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Two novels about approaching the end

24/2/2017

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I’ve enjoyed these two novels about how we manage the end of life, the first through old age and the second through assisted dying. Mortality gets us all sooner or later; what better way to face it than with a novelist holding our hands?

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The Book of Dhaka by Pushpita Alam and Arunava Sinha (eds)

21/2/2017

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I visited Dhaka by accident. Twice. Back in the days when there were no affordable direct flights from London to Kathmandu I travelled with Bangladesh Biman via Dhaka. On the way out the first time, I don’t even remember changing planes at the airport. On the way back, after a month in Nepal and three and a bit in India, it occurred to me I could visit some Bangladeshi friends I’d made on a work camp in Gujarat and fly home via Dhaka.

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A difficult second novel? I’m about to find out!

19/2/2017

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When I was struggling to find a publisher for my first novel, if there was one thing that annoyed me more than advice to keep trying, you’ll get there if it’s good enough; it was moaning about the difficulty of producing a follow-up. While I’m not renowned for my glass-half-full mentality, I’m screaming first world problem to the power of ten. These writers were blessed with a burden I’d have willingly taken from their shoulders, so how do I feel now I’m about to release a second novel of my own?

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Twin studies: Mischling by Affinity Konar

16/2/2017

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When the cattle car stops at Auschwitz, Pearl and Stasha Zagorski’s mother realises their best chance of survival is in Josef Mengele’s Zoo. As the other kids point out, to the twins shivering on their bunk that night alongside a girl on the brink of death, they get more food there (although “it’s not kosher and it eats your insides”) and keep their hair “until the lice come” and their clothes. Submitting their bodies to the doctor’s measurements and experiments, they hope the bond between them will save their humanity. But when, not long before the camp is liberated, Pearl disappears, Stasha embarks on a perilous journey through Poland’s devastation in search, not only of her sister, but of the man who has done them both such harm.

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Don’t be seduced by the allure of romance!

14/2/2017

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If love makes the world go round, it’s hardly surprising that romance crops up as a subplot across most genres of fiction. But, as writers, we need to beware of letting the love interest get out of hand and obscure the more complex themes of our novel. As readers, we need to be alert to publishers dressing up a gruelling narrative as a modern Pride and Prejudice because, let’s face it, sex sells.

For Valentine’s Day, I’m reviving a post that appeared in October 2015 on the Reading Writers website, which is now defunct.

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LGBT history: Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

12/2/2017

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Sebastian Barry’s latest novel, which won the 2016 Costa Book of the Year Award announced last month, is a story of migration and massacre; of bravery and brutality; of family, friendship and gender fluidity told in the unique voice of an Irishman in 1850s America.

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Satire for our times?

9/2/2017

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Is satire redundant when the World’s Most Powerful Narcissist tweets his outrage at the slightest scratch on his orange-tinged carapace, while She Who Should Be Humbled files for divorce from Europe in the full knowledge that this will leave her dependants economically and morally depleted, and literally humbles the Bejewelled Great-Grandmother by committing her to take her New Suitor for a spin in her horse-drawn carriage? Publication proceeding at a slower pace than populist politics, these two novels – the first set in a dystopian near-future and the second in 2013 – were conceived prior to the dystopia that was 2016 but can still evoke a shudder in these early days of 2017.

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On Writing, Rocks and Milestones

6/2/2017

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The average person walks at a rate of three miles an hour. But none of us is the average person. The time we take to walk from A to B varies with our general fitness, the length of our stride and our eagerness to reach our destination. The contours of the land, the smoothness of the path and even the weather also impact on our journey times. Diligent planners will take these factors into account when embarking on a country walk, but even pantsers can make judicious use of the three-miles-an-hour rule in knowing we can’t cover in a day a distance that would take the average person a week.

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Curiosities: Orphans of the Carnival & The Museum of Cathy

2/2/2017

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Blogger and memoirist, Irene Waters, has been collecting memories of ordinary activities across the generations and across the world. Last October’s theme, collections, sparked some interesting reminiscences about stamps, birds’ eggs and the dysfunctional parts of ballpoint pens, to name but a few. The latter came to mind when I was reading about Cathy, the protagonist of the second novel reviewed in this post, and I’ve linked her with Julia, whose unusual life, and posthumous career, is the subject of Orphans of the Carnival, who was less a collector than an object of curiosity herself. I hope you’ll be curious enough to read on.