23.Books on your coffee table: — The Philosophy of the Bed, by Mary Eden & Richard CarringtonYou found this book in a strange kind of thrift shop, a greenhouse beside a garden cafe, its glassy walls housing furniture and crockery, paintings and books. The book has a tattered dust jacket bearing a reproduction of GrandeContinue reading “…soon you will write”
Tag Archives: Art & Literature
…a life in libraries
18.— From the age of 8 to 12 a mobile library stops outside your house. You remember the smell of dust and rubber and paper, and the ridges of wood that edge the shelves to stop the books from sliding out. You borrow a book about boys marooned in the jungle who survive by buildingContinue reading “…a life in libraries”
In Defence of Slow Reading
If Christmas is a time for book-giving, then New Year is a time for reading, and in readiness for this particularly indulgent time of year I cleared my reading decks so I was free for a novel I’ve been waiting to read for some time. The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, is a doorstop of aContinue reading “In Defence of Slow Reading”
The New Children’s Laureate
Malorie Blackman has been appointed as the new Waterstones Children’s Laureate, a two year post that will see her banging the drum for children’s literature, with a special focus on encouraging reading throughout the age groups. One of Blackman’s best known works is the Noughts and Crosses trilogy, set in a dystopian world where theContinue reading “The New Children’s Laureate”
Sally Gander 