The flickering log fire
I read that Ian McEwan asks early readers of his drafts to mark clichés with the acronym FLL (short for ‘the flickering log fire’). I thought of that recently when I was reading a novel by an otherwise fine writer and was brought up short by a reference to ‘nerveless fingers.’ Once was bad enough, […]
Cometh the hour, Cometh the Book
I’ve had Barbara Kingsolver’s book ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE: OUR YEAR OF SEASONAL EATING by my bed since last November. Several times I’ve picked it up and read a few pages, but got no further. I almost took it back to the London Library (yes, it’s fine to have it out that long, unless someone asks […]
Guide Books
As you imagine with a book addict like me, I am keen on guide-books. I’m a bit of an armchair traveller, though I enjoy the real thing, too. A while ago I bought a remaindered copy of the very attractive Dorling Kindersley guide to VENICE AND THE VENETO. No, I wasn’t about to go there, […]
The Little Stranger
Looking back, it may have been a mistake to choose this novel of the supernatural by Sarah Waters as my holiday reading. I never sleep well the first night or two in a hotel and this did turn out to be the kind of novel that you really don’t want to be thinking about as […]
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
For some reason I had taken it for granted that Bill Bryson wasn’t my kind of writer. (Too popular, perhaps? And to anyone who accuses me of intellectual snobbery, I have only this to say: THE DA VINCI CODE). But then I caught him reading from THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THUNDERBOLT KID on […]
Old crime writers don’t die . . .
. . . they just lose the plot. Which I am afraid is what has happened in the case of a recent novel by a writer I have often enjoyed – and have very much admired – in the past. I was well into the book, when I stopped and put it down a sigh. […]
Short Story Competition
New writers out there might be interested in the Mystery Women’s short story. It’s open to unpublished writers only and the closing date is 15 March. Go to the Mystery Women’s web-site at Mystery Women.freeserve.co.uk for further details.There’ll be a proper blog later in the week. Bye for now.
Historical novels
I am not generally a fan of historical novels, largely I think because I am an historian myself. I prefer the line between fact and fiction to be clear-cut. I really can scarcely bear to read novels set in my own period, the nineteenth century, because they so rarely seem to ring true. The way […]
Maidens’ Trip
I have been on the look-out for this book by Emma Smith for a while, even since I learned that it was about the war service of young women on the canals during the Second War War, and had recently been re-issued. It’s an intriguing subject. This was her first book, published in 1948, when […]