This summer holiday I binged on books. I just read and read and read. And then read some more. Bingeing and gluttonising and craving for more and more and more – a heavenly addiction like an opiate of the gods. I could almost go so far as to say that reading is the cure for [...]
I had my first child and my first puppy in close proximity of each other. The puppy was a female mongrel of eight weeks, the child a female toddler of sixteen months. And the novel I was working on at the time was about twelve months old. That is, I’d been writing it for the [...]
First of all, let me emphasise that this truly is a noble book. Really, I mean it. I’m not being facetious. Even though I’m about to embark upon a few critical thoughts, I still fervently maintain that this is a noble book. And for that reason alone, I say Hats off to the author, Heather Morris. [...]
I recently read an interview with a writer who said that she far preferred fictional love stories to real life. The longer I live, the more I agree with that sentiment. I guess that’s why some people write, and some people read, and some people do both. And some people are really, really lucky, and [...]
I once had a boyfriend who had a very simplistic philosophy on life. According to him (let’s call him Joe Bloggs), what could anyone want more in life than good food, good wine and good sex? Our relationship did not last long. But although it’s true that Joe was a rather simple sort, he was [...]
My father once wrote a poem for my mother, before they were married. Although he was Polish, he had an amazing command of the English language, rather like a Joseph Conrad or Vladimir Nabokov. So here are his words of love, sixty years on, in all their time-locked beauty. You asked me how I [...]
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! This time I’m not talking about the tangled web of betrayal. It’s true that I had a rather addictive habit of droning on and on about betrayal some time ago, when I was in the thick of it. And it’s also true [...]
Wendy Skorupski 