-
-
Find a book club
Find a Book Club, a club that does what it says on the tin, asked me to recommend 10 books for book clubs (including two of my own).
Category Archives: Literary Prizes
Language: how it means everything, and nothing
A couple of weeks ago some friends suggested we see ENGLISH, by Sanaz Toossi, at the Kiln Theatre. It’s finished its run now, but if you see it advertised anywhere, go. Toossi wrote the play after the travel ban, colloquially … Continue reading
Posted in Allyship, Antiracism, Art, Artists, Equality, Fiction, Human Rights, Kindness, Language, Listening, Literary Prizes, Plays, Refugees, Storytelling, Theatre
Leave a comment
Reading Black Writers
Until George Floyd was murdered on 25 May 2020, I had not begun to acknowledge, let alone unearth, my inherent racism. That racism includes not reading or even thinking about the work of Black writers. But since that May I’ve … Continue reading
Reading as a writer. Writing as a reader. And the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021
Last week a friend of mine and I talked about the six books shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. We’ve done it before and it’s always illuminating (and fun) but because we both write fiction, our conversations are often … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Creativity, Fiction, Literary Prizes, Psychology, reading, Writers, Writing, Writing Courses
Leave a comment
Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021
This week is the week of the Women’s Prize Virtual Shortlist Festival. For the (almost invisible) amount of £12 you’ll have access to three evenings of readings by the shortlisted writers: there are some wonderful works to hear extracts from on … Continue reading
Posted in Antiracism, Books, Creativity, Equality, Human Rights, Literary Prizes, Psychology, Racism, White Fragility, Women, Writing
Leave a comment
Happiness & Rights balanced by Meaning & Responsibility; and William Golding on Women
Jordan Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos said, in an interview with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Radio 4 recently (these words come from the beginning and the end of the programme): We’ve been fed a diet of … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Gun Control, Literary Prizes, Morality, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Women, Writers
4 Comments
How dramatic stories change brain chemistry, and NOT the Booker Prize
Good strong stories, as we all know, transport us to other people’s worlds. So, when we’re reading fiction, even though we know the people we’re reading about aren’t real, if the story has a successful dramatic arc we’ll empathise with those imaginary people and … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Literary Prizes, Mind, Psychology, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Writers, Writing
2 Comments
Why Readers Stop Reading; Lisa McInerney’s 2016 Bailey’s win, and Penicillin
An interesting survey on why readers stop reading: There’s more here. It’s published by Lit World Interviews (I found it on a TLC facebook post.) The conclusions are mostly what you’d expect to put readers off (although I particularly loved Unexpected Sex as a deterrent to reading on). But … Continue reading
Haworth Parsonage, Richard Flanagan and Anselm Keifer
In September we holidayed in England: we travelled north-west to Stratford (and saw a wonderful production of The Roaring Girl, a play about Mary Frith, an astonishing sixteenth-century woman who lived and dressed as a man, partly in defiance of … Continue reading
The Shock of the Fall : hurray for mental illness in fiction
The subject matter of this year’s Costa first novel winner (and now overall 2013 winner), The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Fileris mental illness. Hurray! (Because publishers so often swerve when they see one of those coming.) And hurray for … Continue reading