Author: Susan Brice

  • Got

    I have a friend who despises the word ‘nice’ and strongly encouraged the children she taught not to use it. I quite like it actually. It makes me think of tea in thin china cups and pretty tablecloths. My personal bête noir is the word ‘got.’ I suspect this dislike comes from early primary school […]

  • The Book Basket

    After one of my fairly regular bookshelf culls, I put a pile of books into a basket and put it in the porch way of my church. The notice beside it said: ‘Summer Reading. These books are free but you can make a donation to the church if you so wish.’ After only a few […]

  • The Last Remains – Elly Griffiths

    When you are selling many copies of your books, they are applauded by literary columnists and your readers wait avidly for the next instalment, it seems very brave to say: this is the last one. ‘The Last Remains’ is the 15th Dr. Ruth Galloway book and the last one in the series. I find that […]

  • Danielle Steele

    A Sunday Times article recently educated me about the author Danielle Steele, now in her mid seventies. She has sold over 800 million copies. I had to check that number, it is so enormous and she has written nearly 200 books, sometimes 3 or 4 a year. I have never read anything by her. Why, […]

  • Life of Pi – Yann Martel

    This 2002 Booker prize winner is one of the strangest books I have read. The sobriquet Booker prize winner does not always mean it will be a book that I enjoy. Some I haven’t even attempted to complete but this was quite an easy read. A zookeeper’s son, Pi finds himself adrift in a lifeboat […]

  • Joy and Sadness – Conflicting Emotions

    The joy is that I came home to find a new book waiting for me: The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths. She is one of my favourite modern authors and she has her own shelf in one of my bookcases. The sadness is that I know this is the last book in the series about […]

  • July 2023

    There are now 5 Jackson Brodie novels written by Kate Atkinson whose literary fame began with ‘Behind The Scenes At The Museum’ in 1995. She has won many awards and indeed has had her work translated into the medium of television. I am definitely having a moment with her books. I have read (and loved) […]

  • Riverside Books

    I love the bookstalls underneath Waterloo Bridge on the South Bank of the Thames. You never know what you might come across and I’ve seen books there that I haven’t seen for years. This market is packed away each night, open every weekend and some weekdays. It has been a part of the whole South […]

  • Frank Muir

    If you are of a certain age then you might remember Frank Muir, he of a variety of Radio 4 quiz games and also Call My Bluff on BBC 2 with his fellow comedy writer Denis Norden. I bought a second hand copy of the Oxford book of Humorous Prose recently and found that it […]

  • Landlines – Raynor Winn

    I think most readers will have heard of this author. This is her third book, following on from The Salt Path and The Wild Silence. The Salt Path was a publishing sensation chronicling as it did the walking of the South West Coast Path by Raynor and her husband Moth. Impressive enough to walk the […]