Who doesn’t love Angela Lansbury? I adore her in everything from Bedknobs & Broomsticks to Murder She Wrote, and I’m hoping to catch her during her run as Madame Arcati in Coward’s Blithe Spirit at the Gielgud Theatre in London. There is an interesting interview with her in the current issue of The Lady, and […]
Great things really do come in pairs, like the new Laurie R. King covers for A Monstrous Regiment of Women and A Letter of Mary. With one in print and the other now on the way, these beauties would look great on any bookshelf. I’m not normally one for pink covers but I think A […]
The Moomins was one of my favourite books and cartoons as a child so I was interested to see that this year Finland is celebrating the centenary of the birth of Tove Jansson, its creator. A few childhood books are a little more troublesome than others, though no less great. I think that The Moomins […]
Literary fans can be as ardent (read: cut-throat) as any football supporter. Which is why I was slightly gutted to belatedly hear about a starry event that pitted Jane Austen versus Charlotte Brontë. Intelligence Squared, a live and online forum for debate and discussion, hosted an evening last month, the first in their ‘literary combat’ […]
It’s been a long week and as we approach the weekend, I bet you’re all looking forward to putting your feet up with a good book. Even better then if you could park yourself in the spring sunshine (here’s hoping for a repeat of last Sunday) on a bench designed like an open book. The […]
The other week I was catching with a good friend who happens to be a bookseller in Blackwells. The subject of conversation turned to The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton and mainly our astonishment at how young she is the have won the Booker. But my friend said something else that shocked me; people often come into […]
I can’t be the only person to have been shocked to read the latest news about a reading cultural divide and the link between deprivation and not reading, can I? Obviously, considering where I’ve ended up, I was a child who lived and breathed books, inhaling everything I could get my hands on, from Blyton […]
Spritzing. It is not the practise of drinking wine based cocktails, but rather what you might be doing instead of reading from now on. An American based software developer (Spritz) has developed a ‘speed reader app’, which promises to get us reading more quickly- potentially devouring a novel in less than 90 minutes. The developers […]
Saturday was International Women’s Day which, if you didn’t know, is an official holiday in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Zambia and is traditionally a time when mothers, wives, girlfriends etc are honoured with flowers and gifts. Something akin to Mother’s Day. But it should go without saying that IWC is a heck of a […]
Last month we were celebrating Valentine’s Day and Rachel Caine‘s latest release Prince of Shadows , a twist on the Romeo & Juliet tale, by giving away a host of goodies. Feel free to coo over the image below. Thank you to all the people who entered to win the set, but there can only […]
I’m currently reading a sneak preview of Jacqueline Winspear’s new book, The Care and Management of Lies, due for release in July this year (sorry to tempt you with it so early before the pub. date!). In it, Kezia Brissenden- a young and inexperienced farmer’s wife- discovers that despite lacking a traditional culinary education, her […]
We’re nearly three months into 2014 and I’ve noticed something great: the days are getting lighter. The air is still a bit chilly but my journey to and from work is no longer in the dark. So from this point onward it’s going to get warmer and brighter. There’s something wonderfully optimistic about spring; flowers […]
The idea of writers’ residencies isn’t new. Current programmes out there range from Gladstone’s Library to Hedgebrook which takes Virgina Woolf’s ‘a room of one’s own’ as it’s motto. While they might differ in focus, they generally seek to offer an environment that facilitates writing, perhaps along the lines of a writing retreat, a place […]
If you’re at a loose end in London this evening, you might like to pop along to Covent Garden and the London Transport Museum where three authors are speaking there about the inspiration behind their London stories. I particularly like the sound of A London Year: 365 Days of City Life in Diaries, Journals and […]
Rachel Caine fans do you still have your Morganville I.D. on your person at all times? Watch out, Amelie might be planning spot checks, but you didn’t hear that from us. Anyway, as well as giving you some slight protection from getting it, err, in the neck from the Founder, these Morganville I.D. cards were […]
Your chance to win a fairy tale pamper day at the Athenaeum Hotel, London.
At the weekend I had some friends visiting so we played tourists and ventured out to see Wicked, the West End musical. While I’ve seen quite a few plays, this was my first musical and I wasn’t disappointed. The two female leads had incredible voices and their characters were quite hilarious as polar opposites. Acting […]
Yesterday finished covers for our second book with Fiona McIntosh, The French Promise, arrived from the printers. Doesn’t it look gorgeous? The French Promise follows on from the story of The Lavender Keeper, returning to the characters of Luc and Lisette as they try to put their demons to rest in the years following the […]
Fans of 221b Baker Street resident Sherlock Holmes are in for a treat or a shock depending on your perspective. The deerstalker-wearing detective is about to get the same kind of treatment that has so far been reserved for that most magical (and bankable) literary hero Harry Potter: a theme park. Yes, coming soon to […]
I said last week that I would let you know my thoughts on the Gore Vidal documentary: Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia that I was seeing, courtesy of DocHouse. So, fulfilling my promise I would like to say that I am reeeeling from Thursday’s screening at the ICA and have come away from […]
Going up around the London Underground right now are some beautiful posters. Well, I would say that as they feature Kate Forsyth’s fairy tale-inspired books Bitter Greens and The Wild Girl. To celebrate the release of The Wild Girl in paperback, we’re running a competition to win a very swish Champagne spa day for two […]