The First Book I Ever Bought
It was The Borrowers by Mary Norton. Though perhaps I ought to amend that and say that it is the first book I remember chosing for myself in a bookshop. My grandparents – I think – actually paid for it. My memory is hazy. I am sure it was W. H. Smith’s in Redcar, but […]
Another Early Love
Few of the books that I read as a child have survived all the house moves over the years. Looking on my shelves just now I found only What Katy Did at School, Anne of Avonlea, The Count of Monte Cristo, an abridged Alice in Wonderland (given to my mother by Chesterfield Congregational Sunday School) […]
The first book that you remember?
One of the pleasures of parenthood is the excuse to buy children’s books. There are wonderful picture books for children these days, and I loved reading and looking at them with my daughter. It’s strange, looking back, that I don’t remember any picture books from my own childhood. Of course there were far fewer books […]
Homer nods, but copy-editors should be ever vigilant
We readers will swallow virtually anything. Talking animals? Fine, and not just in children’s books: what about Animal Farm and Watership Down? Ghosts, monsters, stories set far in the future or on other planets, novels set in the unknowable past such as Golding’s The Inheritors? Fine, fine, fine. Of course they won’t be to everyone’s […]
A Proustian moment
Not long ago, with time to spare before a Eurotunnel crossing my daughter and I wandered into the perfume section of the duty-free shop. And what a stroll down memory lane it turned out to be. The story of my life was there. The first perfume that I associate with my mother is Estée Lauder’s […]
Too much information?
The producers of the old Columbo series took a risk when they launched a show that began by showing not only the murder but also revealing the murderer. They got rid of the most obvious source of suspense: not only do we know whodunit, but really we know too that Columbo will uncover the truth. […]
The Time of my Life
I don’t want to read Catcher in the Rye again – or Salinger’s short stories – though I was impressed by them when I was around twenty. Nor am I tempted to reread Wuthering Heights (though Jane Eyre is another matter). I won’t be returning to The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings or Mervyn […]
Emma Lathen: The Agatha Christie of Wall Street
This appears on the cover of one of her books. That might be pitching it a bit high, but I do agree that Emma Lathen is a very good read. She is one of those writers who is in fact two writers. This kind of joint venture mostly happens in the crime-writing world, though my […]
The Red Right Hand
I’m surprised that I’d never heard of The Red Right Hand by Joel Townsley Rogers (published 1945 and now available as e-book) until recently. What a novel! The author runs full tilt at the plot, pulling the reader along with him, and keeps going, the pace never slackening, until finally, finally, he skids to a […]