Have you ever read a book that felt like it was looking directly into your soul? A book that gave you the exact push you needed to return to a long-lost passion or project? I've just finished reading Virginia Evans’ masterpiece, The Correspondent, and I am still reeling. It's a spectacular novel – elegantly paced, [...]
As it’s technically still summer, with the flowers in my garden still healthy shades of red and yellow and pink (those that escaped the hungry jaws of my mad Belgian Malinois dog), and the cobalt-blue sky hanging covetously over our high garden wall as though protecting this secret paradise from the autumn winds that lie [...]
I’ve been thinking lately, as we all do. But I’ve been thinking specifically about what makes a great book, as opposed to merely a mediocre book. I won’t bother conjecturing about what makes a bad book, even though lots of those get published as well and sometimes even acclaimed as bestsellers. In my opinion, the [...]
If you hear the name Rwanda, most people will either: associate it with the mountain gorilla; recall the appalling genocide of 1994 that swept across the country with devastating speed, claiming a million lives in the process; ask you: “Rwanda? Who’s that?” (which is precisely what a young shop assistant said when I enquired about [...]
