Holiday Reading
It’s always hard to know which books to pack when space is at a premium. Recent holidays have been spent in Northern France so it has just been a matter of slinging a bag of books in the boot of the car. But this time we were going to China so there was a real […]
I’ve never read Ulysses
I’ve just read Susan Hill’s HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING about the year she spent reading from her own collection of books. I enjoyed it and agreed with her about a lot. Like her I think that THE RECTOR’S DAUGHTER is a masterpiece. Like her I have a high regard for Trollope and Dickens […]
‘Have you always wanted to write?’
My friend, Martin Edwards, has an entertaining blog with the splendid title ‘Do you write under your own name?’ I have been asked this too at parties, usually in a hopeful tone after the speaker has ascertained that they have never heard of me or my novels. I never hold that against them. I don’t […]
The Rector’s Daughter Revisited
Two or three months ago I blogged about THE RECTOR’S DAUGHTER by F. M. Mayor and wondered if it was time to revisit it. Well, soon after this I offered it as one of the choices for my reading group and it was the one they picked. So I have reread it and what an […]
Elizabeth Jenkins
Elizabeth Jenkins died a few days ago at the age of 104. She’s a writer I’ve long admired. She was a distinguished biographer – Jane Austen, Elizabeth I – and a fine novelist. There are two works that I go back to regularly. One is her 1954 novel, THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE. The story […]
The Rabbi and Others
During the fortnight since I wrote about Harry Kemelman I have been reading my way contentedly through FRIDAY THE RABBI SLEPT LATE, SUNDAY THE RABBI STAYED HOME, TUESDAY THE RABBI SAW RED, WEDNESDAY THE RABBI GOT WET, THURSDAY THE RABBI WALKED OUT and have got MONDAY THE RABBI TOOK OFF on my reading pile. At […]
A rose by any other name?
Titles are very much on my mind at present as I mull over the options for my recently completed novel. Of course whatever my agent and I settle on, it won’t necessarily be the title the book ends up with, but still . . . you want something that’ll get you off to a good […]
Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry
On his splendid blog Martin Edwards writes occasionally about forgotten crime writers. I am not sure that Harry Kemelman has been forgotten exactly, but I don’t suppose he is read much these days. I was reminded of his immensely readable novels a few months ago by a friend who was undergoing a gruelling course of […]
Lament for a Bookshop
A few weeks ago I mourned the passing of Galloway and Porter’s. In Oxford last week-end at the Mystery and Crime conference at St Hilda’s I thought of another much-loved second-hand bookshop that vanished some years ago. I can’t remember its name, but it was on the road leading up from the station and on […]