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I've covered quite some miles in my car in this past week, driving around the region for various reasons. And it's been enjoyable. The weather has been fine, the routes clear and familiar, the roads well maintained (on the whole) and the traffic free flowing!

When I'm driving without any stress or pressure, it's a time for thought and inspiration. I usually have voices on the radio quietly accompanying me. And my mind wanders, whether prompted by something being discussed in the programme or sent on a tangent of an altogether different subject. 

In an article this weekend, the novelist David Nicholls describes how he has found walking to be his way of gaining clarity and insight. (And also a time to listen to audio books, rather delightfully sharing that a 500 page book is a 50 mile walk.)

His latest novel, called 'You Are Here' (released later this month with my review to follow next weekend) focuses on friends walking from one side of the country to the other. It is something David Nicholls himself has discovered rather late in life, he says - this experience of taking a journey, stripped away of all the usual distractions of daily life, focusing entirely on getting from A to B through your own efforts.

Another new book details the therapeutic, healing properties of walking as three men undertook just such a trek to process some very real, tragic recent events in each of their lives. 

'Three Dads Walking' is a powerful read. It's uplifting, inspiring and full of hope but it is also a stark reminder of how young people can be so devastatingly troubled. For these three men, walking and talking together, through the British countryside, gave them an opportunity to process their grief and raise awareness of their cause.

We'll be meeting and talking together in Framlingham this week for the monthly book group at Ottie and the Bea. Do come along if you can.

And our Woodbridge book group meets the following Monday on a slightly-earlier-than-usual date for our monthly discussion. We'll be talking about 'For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain'. If you're planning on coming along, please let me know. I hope to see you soon!

Thank you for reading.

Well, despite losing an hour of sleep and the weather being a little variable, I hope you've had a good Easter weekend.

I was glad to be up early in the morning on Saturday when I was the cox for a men's four on the river here in Suffolk. The water was mirror calm, the tide low and we only had wading birds for company. It was very special. 

Although I should have made the most of the spring sunshine for the rest of the day, the Boat Race was taking place in the afternoon so I spent a good couple of hours in front of the television.

I very much enjoy the BBC's coverage each year as Clare Balding and her team take us along the route, introduce us to the phenomenal athletes, invite comments from the marvellous Katherine Grainger and also, this year, reference 'Lessons in Chemistry' - the bestseller by Bonnie Garmus where rowing is a key theme and my novel of the year for 2023!

The women's and men's races were both very exciting and not without incident and I couldn't help but feel for both the winning and losing teams as they dealt with the outcomes of the competition. My reading of a book by Simon Mundie, just a couple of days earlier, made me consider their situation even more keenly.

With any sport, the focus is on strategy, tactics and the result. And with our lives we can put a great deal of store in how high we have risen up the ranks at work, or how well regarded we are by our community or our peers. 

Simon Mundie suggests we should measure success differently. Yes, we should explore our potential and delight in 'getting in the flow', but true contentment might lie elsewhere, and might just be more attainable than we have realised. It's a fascinating book! 

Thank you for reading.

My reading usually consists of newly published or forthcoming books as I research for magazine articles or make recommendations for this newsletter and website. But this week I've had reason to pore over old books, documents and stories.

For two distinct projects, I've been looking back on lives lived from the early to mid-20th century and it's been both poignant and inspiring, seeing how people have faced and overcome personal trials and challenges. 

However, it's also been frustrating. The stories have been incomplete. Letters and diaries have been destroyed. Documents are tantalisingly out of reach so it's not possible, yet, to find out why certain events occurred, or what an individual thought or felt in a particular circumstance.

These days we're used to having our questions answered, usually almost instantaneously. We have come to expect that we can find out anything and everything we want about something, or someone. 

In the present day, it's important, though, to remember that we are all entitled to having some control over what we reveal about ourselves, to have privacy and respect from others, to be able to maintain a sense of mystery, if we wish.

For past lives, we have more freedom in speculating and pondering, perhaps. There's a genre of fiction that has arisen from just that approach. And we may, in fact, learn more about ourselves through our responses to what we know, or don't know, about individuals from long ago.

Thank you for reading.

This week I paid a fleeting visit to the London Book Fair and had a rather overwhelming reminder of the vast and vibrant world of publishing.

Amidst the acres of stands, the thousands of attendees and exhibitors, and the intense programme of workshops, talks and seminars, I stumbled across an author whose comments have kept me thinking all week.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is the creator of a number of bestselling novels and has a not insubstantial social media following.

I was going to attend her session out of curiosity and located the venue in good time, intending to rock up at the last minute (if I didn't find something better to do!). However, a good hour before she was due to speak, the queue stretched far into the distance, so I joined it, though felt a little out of place among all the glamorous young women clutching their phones.

Taylor has written eight novels including 'The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo' and, most recently, 'Carrie Soto is Back' - which I have read, though initially struggled to remember the plot.

Well, I will now be reading all her books - what a phenomenal speaker. So engaging, humble, personable, relatable and articulate. She was amazing. But my point is... 

She explained why she had played with format in her books. (I haven't read 'Daisy Jones and the Six' so I can't list what she does but I think it's things like emails, news clippings, including real people and events, etc.) She said that she wanted readers to lose themselves completely in her books so mixes historical facts and familiar incidents and individuals with her make-believe world and characters, leaving the two indistinguishable. 

I've never been sure of this melding of fact in fiction but hearing this young (I've just looked her up and she's 40...), dynamic and thoughtful novelist explaining why she takes this approach, made me want to revisit the idea, at least objectively (as a writer as much as a reader)!

And I didn't have long to explore it, either. The book we were discussing in our Framlingham Book Group this month was 'The Romantic' by William Boyd which begins with the author saying he had discovered some letters and diaries of the adventurer Cashel Greville Ross and had turned this life into a novel.

So we learn how Ross experienced momentous historic events such as the Battle of Waterloo and met notable figures such as Byron and Shelley.

But it's not true. The whole book, the whole story is invented. There were no diaries or letters. 

Readers only know it's all made up if they discover interviews with the author describing the writing of the book. So when we've trusted the author and believed his letter to the reader only to find that he's been playing a trick on us - how does that make us feel?

You needed to be at the book group on Wednesday to hear the different responses and emotions it engendered. 

On that note - the Woodbridge Book Group is meeting a week tomorrow... And for the first time we're discussing a graphic novel (scroll down for details). How will we respond to that form of storytelling? If you'd like to come along to participate or to listen in, please email to let me know and I'll send you the details. 

Thank you for reading.

I remember reading, some years ago now, how the current generation would be adopting minimalist lives. No need for shelves of CDs or books, they would have everything on their phones or tablets, so they would be relieved of the clutter the rest of us endure.

But it seems this may not be the case after all. An article in the 'Financial Times' recently (last month - I've had a bit of a backlog to work through) suggested that the first major design trend of 2024 is 'bookshelf wealth'.

There are thousands of TikTok influencers who are realising that bookshelves, and books, might be 'cool'. So, carefully curated collections are presented on reels or feeds to present the sought-after image.

There's no need to read all these books, of course, as it's about the look of the thing. Not even titles or authors are important as books can be selected for the colour or appearance of the spine (and not even that, some people feel a desirable look is to have books turned backwards, their spines facing inwards!).

And on a slightly different tack, there was an article in the 'Guardian' last week where a young man had effectively lined the walls of his house with copies of the video of the film 'Titanic'. 

I'm not sure what to conclude from all this save to say that however we choose to collect them or present them, we are all hugely privileged to have books so readily available and even if these influencers haven't chosen books to read now, by having them close to hand, perhaps they'll realise what gems they have one day soon.

Thank you for reading.