Congratulations Sophie Duffy!
It was wonderful the other night to see the Luke Bitmead Bursary awarded for a third year, this time to Sophie Duffy for The Generation Game. The prize…
“The Buddha of Suburbia” by Hanif Kureishi
I grew up in Beckenham, the exact part of London suburbia in which this novel is set. To my knowledge it’s the…
“Lux the Poet” by Martin Millar
I thought I would like this book more than I did. It’s a comedy set in the Brixton Riots of the early…
RIP Prospero
I learned recently of the demise of Prospero’s Books, my local independent bookshop in Crouch End. It made me very sad –…
Learning from the French
Moving from journalism into fiction writing, it sometimes feels as if I have gone from one dying industry straight to another. All…
My non-review of the best books of 2010
So all the newspapers have been publishing their end-of-year roundups. Some even started back in November. Here’s why I won’t be doing my own little roundup of the…
Pigeon-feeding inflation
The cost of feeding the birds has gone up a lot. It only cost Mary Poppins tuppence a bag, but in Trafalgar…
Cezanne at the Courtauld Gallery
Went to see an interesting exhibit recently at the Courtauld Gallery on the Strand. What I liked about it was that instead…
“Best European Fiction 2010” edited by Aleksandar Hemon
This was a very interesting collection of short stories from around Europe. There’s one piece from each country, so it really felt…