It’s taken me at least a year to re-read ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’. Of course I’ve read a lot of other things in the meantime, but Ann Radcliffe’s 1794 gothic whopper is an easy book to put down, and I don’t mean that as an insult. It was hugely popular and influential in its day, […]
Continue reading →My chat with Joanne Harris (Oxford Lit Fest, last entry) prompted me to dig out an early of hers that I’d never read – ‘Sleep, Pale Sister’ (Transworld), a slice of Victorian gothic that preceded ‘Chocolat’, the novel that made her famous. ‘SPS’ takes for its background the world of the Pre-Raphaelites, and more generally […]
Continue reading →I made four visits this week to the Oxford Lit Fest, chairing four remarkable authors. This meant a lot of rushing up and down from Paddington, memorising the route: Slough (where I always think ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough / It isn’t fit for humans now’ – gosh, the power of a great […]
Continue reading →I have a particular fondness for yoga transformation stories so a quick look at Emma Slade’s Set Free: A life-changing journey from banking to Buddhism in Bhutan (Summersdale £9.99) immediately appealed. Slade worked in banking as an analyst, living in Hong Kong, flying around the Far East attending high-powered meetings and offering her expertise. (I […]
Continue reading →In the past for my annual evening of Valentine-inspired readings, I’ve featured Anti-Valentines (enjoyably bilious) and Legendary Lovers (Abelard and Heloise, Ovid, Elizabeth and Leicester). But if I was pushed to explain the theme this year, perhaps I’d have to call it ‘It’s complicated…’ All the speakers showcased work expressing the pains, paradoxes, problems and precarious joys […]
Continue reading →I spent the weekend at an arts festival in an extraordinary venue – the imposing Tilbury Cruise Terminal on the north bank of the Thames, where the Windrush docked in 1948. Shorelines, the two-day offshoot of Estuary 2016, which runs to 2 October, also had one of the most fun approaches to any festival, with […]
Continue reading →Emma Cline’s debut The Girls has created a stir this year, having gained a huge advance, a film option and high-level praise. The reviews, while appreciative, were somewhat muted and having read the book (no, devoured it) I can understand why. ‘She’s a better writer than Donna Tartt,’ a publishing friend said, adding that the […]
Continue reading →I love occult-themed novels and novels set in Venice, so it’s amazing I’ve had Amanda Prantera’s The Cabalist (Bloomsbury) kicking about for so long. Prantera is due a renaissance – it happened to the wonderful Deborah Levy so why not her? Prantera’s writing has a flavour all its own: intellectual, playful and distinctively creepy with its investigations […]
Continue reading →At a lunch last week, members of the Authors Club met to debate the shortlist of this year’s award – always a lively occasion. This year’s discussion was brisk and amicable. Some titles could be discarded quickly, having just squeaked on to the longlist in the first place. Others died harder. Here’s the list, with some commentary […]
Continue reading →Pretty much every month from now on till April 2024 marks the anniversary of something significant in the lives of those hectic, high-achieving younger Romantics. But this summer’s anniversary is special even by their standards. From May to July 1816 Lord Byron took up residence in the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva. On 27 May […]
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