News

Since the turn of the year I've read a number of articles about people who have decided to radically change their reading habits.

Instead of trying to increase their tally of books read in a year, or keeping up with all the prize lists and bestseller charts, they have decided to be more thoughtful about their choices and to take more time and care in the act of reading. They've chosen less is more, quality over quantity. 

I've read these articles with a certain amount of admiration. And a touch of envy, too. Being able to slow down and escape from the pressures and demands exerted on us in our reading, from lots of different sources, is rather appealing.

But there are just too many great books to read!

And this week saw the announcement of the longlist for the Women's Prize, for fiction and non-fiction and contenders for  Best Book of the Year and Author of the Year in the book trade through The Bookseller magazine.

Despite my best intentions, I've leapt into these lists and am already devouring one of the titles mentioned. More of that in the coming weeks!

What's more, this weekend, in attending the Aldeburgh Literary Festival I've been inspired to read all the novels by Muriel Spark, in chronological order!! And the poetry and biographies of Sylvia Plath. Scroll down to find out why. 

So how do I propose to find the time for all these books? Well, this week there are a couple of long train journeys in store so I'm hoping that will give me a good few hours of uninterrupted reading. What a treat! 

Thank you for reading.

When I revealed the title for this term's school book group discussion recently, the children cried out in dismay: 'but we know what happens!'

The book I'd chosen was 'The Wild Robot' by Peter Brown and it was released as an animated film last year. I didn't go to see it because I loved the book so much and didn't want to see the characters come to life anywhere other than in my imagination. But the children hadn't been aware of the book before seeing the film. Now they were reluctant to return to the text. 

I managed to convince them that we should read the book together and I hope they'll find it as good as (and possibly better than) the film. 

It's been interesting to read this week, though, that sales of Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' have soared as people have wanted to return to the original novel after seeing Emerald Fennell's interpretation on screen. (I haven't been to see the film yet and may well have more to say about this when I have done so!)

Also screening at the moment is the film interpretation of 'H is for Hawk' by Helen Macdonald, an account of training a goshawk as the author came to terms with the sudden death of her father.

It was beautifully shot with lovely scenes of Cambridge and the Fens, a majestic bird and fabulous acting from the star Clare Foy.

Helen Macdonald will be in Ipswich, with Sin Blache, her co-author for the genre-defying novel 'Prophet', on 12 March for Suffolk Book League. Unfortunately I can't be there, but it will be a fascinating discussion, I'm sure. You can read my interviews with Helen here and here.

I generally prefer reading the book before any film or drama, and we're getting ahead of the game in Woodbridge with our Book Group book this month. 'Dreamland' by Rosa Rankin-Gee is set to appear as a major BBC drama later this year, starring Anna Friel and Katherine Parkinson. We'll be talking about the novel at the end of this month (scroll down for details). Do read along and join us if you can.

Thank you for reading!

It's only a week since I met Elly Griffiths in Lowestoft to talk to her about her new book, 'The Killing Time', yet it feels like months ago.

It hasn't been a particularly busy week, but clearly a lot of things have happened to make it seem that a lot of time has passed.

Funnily enough, Elly's novel is about time-travelling detectives. It's the second in her new series, and each time I talk to her about the rules, devices and fascination of time travel in literature, I am reminded of her reference to Einstein who stated that we are all time travellers, just moving forward into the future.

Chatting to Elly before we went on stage, I was surprised to discover that in her reading, she looks back, being a keen re-reader of books. If she picks up a new author, she will get to the end of the book and immediately start again to work out how the author 'did it', she said.

But she also re-reads old favourites and we compared notes on the children's classic 'A Wrinkle in Time' which I've recently revisited with a group of primary school children. Elly revealed that one of the characters from that book by Madeleine L'Engle inspired her current series. You'll have to read them to see if you can work out who!

The children's book I've read this week is also about time and travel, in the retelling of Jules Verne's 'Around the World in Eighty Days' (scroll down for details). The message to take away for the heroine Maggie, accompanying Passepartout and Phileas Fogg, is 'take every day, every hour, every minute one tick at a time'.

It's rather like Sophie Raworth's attitude to running, and to life, taking it a step at a time, one foot in front of the other.

This approach of living in the moment, not dwelling on the past nor wishing for some hope or dream for the future, was brought sharply into focus for me again with the story of Peter Berry as he copes with his dementia.

I attended the launch of his second book 'Patching the Puncture' this week and came away moved and inspired by his humour, kindness and joy as he seeks to treasure the life he has now, not the memories he has lost nor what might have been.  

Thank you for reading!

We had a taste of spring in Suffolk yesterday with sunshine and blue skies, only to be plunged back into winter today with snow and rain - and gloom, it has to be said. I'd prefer some warmth and longer days but, for the moment, it means evenings with the curtains drawn, a roaring fire, curled up with a good book - and that's not so bad.

The publishers are urging us to look ahead, though. Ever since the turn of the year they've been releasing details of the books coming out in the next twelve months. It does feel as though we're wishing our lives away!

This week one particular title gained attention on the national news.

Bestselling children's writer Julia Donaldson has written a third Gruffalo book, called 'Gruffalo Granny', with illustrations of course by Axel Scheffler. It's brought great excitement - so much so that it topped the charts for online book sales. But it's not published until...September!

It's lovely to have something fun to look forward to, of course, though that seems a little too far ahead for me to think about. 

Having said that, I've just booked another author visit to Woodbridge at The Riverside and though our guest won't be joining us for a few months yet, I am so excited that I haven't been able to resist opening ticket sales straightaway. 

We're welcoming a hero of mine, the newsreader Sophie Raworth, and she'll be talking about her memoir 'Running on Air'. It tells of episodes from her life working for the BBC, and her family, all in the context of her, fairly recent, passion for running. It's an inspiring read. It certainly made me want to get my trainers on - but then it started raining.

Scroll down for details and buy your ticket now to have something to look forward to in the next few weeks?

Thank you for reading!

PS This month is slipping away, so we have just one more week before our book group meetings for both Woodbridge and Framlingham. Scroll down for details and do let me know if you're coming along. Looking forward to seeing everyone again and finding out what we all think of this month's books!

We had a fabulous evening at The Riverside on Tuesday. Rachel Parris was a wonderfully warm and engaging speaker on stage and generous in her conversations afterwards with teachers, book club members and improv groups who had joined us in the audience.

I think we all came away amazed at Rachel's talents and work ethic. She underplayed her various roles as musician, comedian, tv presenter, writer, podcaster and founder of improv group Austentatious - 'I don't do them all at the same time,' she said.

Having completed 'Introducing Mrs Collins', her first novel, in just four months, this feat was all the more astonishing when she explained the lengths she went to in researching aspects of the period of 'Pride and Prejudice' which had been left unsaid by Jane Austen. Who'd have thought 18th century military history could prove so entertaining?

Of course Rachel has 'lived' Jane Austen for the past 14 years through her improv group Austentatious and she tried to convince us that stepping on stage not knowing what you are going to do or say in front of a couple of hundred people for 90 minutes isn't anything to fear. 

You can never go wrong, Rachel said, because there are no lines to forget, no stage directions to get wrong and you are working with people with whom you have built a strong bond and who all have a common goal to bring fun and laughter. She advised us all to give it a try if we ever had the opportunity.

Of course, we're all making it up as we go along to some extent, aren't we? Much as we like to plan and organise and anticipate, things don't always go ahead as they should. Over the past couple of weeks I've certainly valued the team of people who've helped me put this week's event together. 

And I'm ready to do it again with the announcement of another exciting author event very soon!

Thank you for reading.

PS The new Elly Griffiths novel is out this week. Called 'The Killing Time' it is the second instalment following time-travelling detective Ali Dawson. I'll be speaking to Elly about this new series, as well as her much-loved Ruth Galloway books (of course), at an event in Lowestoft on Friday afternoon. Details here. Or read my review of 'The Killing Time' here.