Category: 2022

  • January 2022

    On one idle afternoon in lockdown (can’t remember which one!) I decided to count my books. It took some time and I rather lost interest by the time I reached 2,500. This isn’t counting books belonging to other members of the family. I then badly needed a cup of tea. And, rather on the back […]

  • February 2022

    I am reading Mary Wesley. On my bookshelves there are the 10 novels written by this author in the 1980s and 90s, written by her and published late in life. Having just worked my way through Penelope Fitzgerald, it occurred to me that there are many writers who were not published until at least middle […]

  • March 2022

    There are many reviewers and writers who have said that a good book is just that, a good book and it really doesn’t matter if the agents and publishers put the book out there as a children’s book or one for adults. I agree with that point of view and indeed have several ‘children’s’ books […]

  • April 2022

    How much Greek did your secondary school teach? At my small, country, grammar school we did plenty of Latin but definitely no Greek. However, I was fortunate in that my English teacher obviously had a penchant for Greek myths and we spent many hours becoming familiar with the relationships and activities of a whole variety […]

  • May 2022

    ‘Trollopian’. Do you ever use that word? I wondered whether maybe I had made it up but no it is indeed a bona fide word. When I employ this term it is usually when commenting on happenings in churches, or more frequently cathedrals. I am meaning that the situation is reminiscent of something in Anthony […]

  • June 2022

    As a child, one thinks of truth as a completely black and white concept. Something is either true or it isn’t. As one gets older everything becomes more complicated and the black and white merge to very many shades of grey, more than 57, more even than on a Farrow and Ball paint card. The […]

  • July 2022

    Many times I have been taught that a well written short story is the pinnacle of literary achievement. On an intellectual level I can understand this. To structure a story with introduction, conflict, resolution and conclusion, and to do this within a few pages whilst also having a well conceived plot and some depth of […]

  • August 2022

    In the 1980s Terry Wogan had a very popular chat show on BBC 1. I remember one episode where he was interviewing the author Rosamunde Pilcher about her book The Shell Seekers. The book was an amazing and unexpected success, selling millions of copies around the world. Wogan asked the author how much money she […]

  • September 2022

    Where do you park in Cookham? I have been there to ponder upon the rather difficult art in the Stanley Spencer Gallery and I have sat in the sunshine by the river and had lunch at the Ferry Inn. But, goodness me, the parking! I suspect that Kenneth Grahame would not have been bothered by […]

  • October 2022

    It was a wet, cold Sunday afternoon in January and presumably my homework was done. I was looking for something to read and scanned along my parents’ rather meagre bookshelves. Picking something quite at random I retired to a corner of the sofa, as near as possible to the coal fire, and began. In no […]