Mummy, what’s your favourite song? …

… asked daughter Juliet, who since her Dad bought some noise cancelling headphones has been glued to the family iPod. Well, where to start? I couldn’t possibly choose just one song, so in time-honoured Desert Island Discs fashion will try to limit it to eight! Here they are, in no particular order: Everybody knows by Read More

It’s a beautiful day

I’m sitting looking out over school playing fields, the early morning frost has melted leaving the grass glistening. A few trees stubbornly hang onto their last leaves, and the church spire points heav’nward, contrasting against a hazy blue and cloudless sky. All is perfect except for just one thing … Blooming leaf blowers!!! I can Read More

The Sonnets by Warwick Collins

This is an ambitious novel. The author has taken Shakespeare’s sonnets and created a novel around them, selecting those that fit this narrative – 32 in all, reproduced in full within the text. Although I love Shakespeare’s plays, I’ve never read the sonnets, just knowing a couple of the famous quotes. This novel was a Read More

Alan Coren – 69 for 1

In spare moments after lunch for the past couple of months, I’ve been dipping into the humorist Alan Coren’s last book of columns. I can’t believe it’s over a year since he died, but reading these mini-masterpieces of wit, I can hear his voice, in turns mocking and exasperated, but always with tongue firmly in Read More

Desert Island Books #2

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable Some may consider choosing an encyclopaedic dictionary a bit of a cheat, but I maintain that if you were on a desert island with no internet – there is no better book than Brewer’s for frequent dipping into for little nuggets of information. It is simply the original and Read More

Proper Showbiz Memoirs …

I love good showbiz memoirs and biographies. None of that celebrity trash – I like proper life stories of people in any aspect of showbiz with distinguished and/or interesting careers. In particular, I always find the behind the scenes stories of the creative process are fascinating, be it on stage, on film or in the Read More

Oct-Nov Book Group Report

Nine of us met at the new Ask? Italian in Abingdon last night for our monthly meeting. We had 2 books to discuss as October’s was cancelled. A nice place to eat, although slightly pricey for what you get, Ask? was not the ideal venue for a discussion as the high ceiling with gallery (it’s Read More

Short Takes

The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark The 100th book I read this year. It was a delightful short novel about a young man who arrives in a slightly posh bit of South London, stirs things up rather devilishly bringing this staid bit of town to life, and then he disappears. Is Dougal Douglas Read More