Posts by tag
Books
Journalism was never what I wanted to do. That’s what I told the interviewing professor on the renowned journalism graduate course, on being offered one of forty places out of thousands of applicants. ‘I’m only here because I’m constantly told that no one leaves school to become a novelist,’ I told him crossly. I was…
Money can’t bring you happiness – as the Pink Floyd song doesn’t go. A cliché spun by the poor to give succour to a life of Travelodges and Nando’s? Very probably. Allegedly, psychologists have definitively worked out the time it takes for lottery winners to lose the glow of good fortune. It’s 12 months. That’s all…
I had been to the W Leicester Square before. In June 2011, the hotel launched its (W)riters’ Library, commissioning ten authors to choose their favourite books to populate the shelves of the hotel’s library. I was one of those authors, joining Geoff Dyer, David Nicholls and Naomi Alderman (amongst others) at the glitzy opening bash.…
I’m finally reading Simon Mawer’s The Glass Room. It has moved up and down the teetering pile of books beside my bed for months, gently taunting me. I have heard great things about it, but always something more pressing has intervened. This Friday, though, I will read it, losing myself in the wartime world of…
For those of us who have melted under the tender hands of its expert Asian practitioners in such exotic locations as Thailand, Vietnam or the Maldives, some good news. Six Senses, the unique holistic and organic spa/lifestyle experience, has arrived in London’s Canary Wharf, so a stones throw rather than a plane ride to unadulterated…
The historic seat of the Earl of St Germans gets all creative for the weekend as Cornwall’s annual literary fest returns. Now in its ninth year, the Port Elliot Festival has continued to grow in stature, not least due to its idyllic location in the grounds of the Grade One listed stately home, and now…