3rd December
My life might have been very different had my parents or I made other decisions. They met and married in Australia but decided to return…
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2nd December
Persuasion is Jane Austen’s most mature novel. It has always been my favourite of her books and the older I’ve become, the more I’ve appreciated…
Advent is Coming
I was fifty this year and, in planning for my extravaganza of a party, I compiled lots of lists, many of them of fifty things.…
Armistice Runner by Tom Palmer
From my publishing favourite Barrington Stoke comes this young novel to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the Armistice. It's the story of three generation…
Comfort Reading
The long silence from me is due to illness. I was critically ill in the summer and have taken a long time to recuperate. For…
One Book, Many Editions
I recently received a copy of Anne of Green Gables from Alma Books. As anyone who has known me for more than a few moments…
Collecting the Carnegie
I first made an abortive attempt to collect a copy of every winner of the Carnegie Medal back in 2007 when I was involved in…
Until We Win by Linda Newbery
There are few things I look forward to more than a new novel by Linda Newbery or a novel set around the campaign for women's…
Too Busy Reading to Blog!
It's true! I seem to have been reading non-stop all summer: for The Scotsman, for the Edinburgh International Book Festival and for our own book…
Eva Ibbotson
I was very sad to hear, belatedly, of the death of Eva Ibbotson. The world of fiction for children, teenagers and adults is a poorer…
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