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Daffodils that come before the swallow dares,
and take the winds of March with beauty.
Shakespeare – Winters Tale Act IV Scene IV
I have had a couple of months where I have been deeply immersed in detective fiction of one sort or another: Ian Rankin, Mick Herron, Robert Galbraith, just for starters. I needed an antidote … and then it was Valentines Day. My gift was a debut novel by Lucy Steeds; The Artist. A perfect present […]
How many pages can you read whilst a saucepan of peas cooks do you think? As it turns out, quite a few. I know as I have done it. Usually my current book stays beside my bed, except during lockdown times when there was a downstairs book and an upstairs book. However, I lived (I […]
Maybe it depends upon whether you are an optimist or a pessimist as to whether you follow RM Ballantyne’s portrayal in ‘The Coral Island’ of children castaway on a tropical island, not only surviving but thriving or the anarchic picture in William Golding’s ‘The Lord of the flies’ of lost boys becoming tribal and murderous. […]
I grew up in freezing cold Kent in the 1950s and early 60s. The airing cupboard was the one place to curl up comfortably and read. The cat sometimes chose to join me. He too knew where it was warm …
Susan Brice