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This week our local council announced the launch of plans for a new library complex in our town in the heart of the town centre. Broadly I approve of the proposals although I would like to see the library located…
Continue readingArtemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer I’ve always loved stories of fairies, elves, and the hidden people, but in truth whenever I think of them I imagine them living a simpler, more rural, rustic way of life tucked away out of…
Continue readingThe Man Who Rained by Ali Shaw This is the natural follow-up to Ali Shaw’s brilliant debut, The Girl With Glass Feet. It is every bit as beautifully and lyrically written as that story, but it is in a way…
Continue readingAt the beginning of 2013 I reset my perennial new year’s resolution to read more, and resolved once more to try and read 20 books this year. Today I can report that I have smashed my target, ground my previous…
Continue readingThe Awakening (The Judas Curse, #1) by Angella Graff Religious fiction is not really my usual bag, but urban fantasy (for want of a better word, and I think there probably is…) is. When I came across this book with…
Continue readingBanzai’s Unexpected Voyage by Jane-Anne Hodgson, illustrated by Sammy Jim! When I read the first Grubson Pugg book – Grubson Pugg’s Christmas Voyage – as the final book of last year (and what a festive joy that was!) I found…
Continue readingWrite by Phil Daoust (Editor) I first encountered this joy of a book when I attended a talk on a cold, snowy day at the Oxford Literary Festival in March last year. A couple of students from the Oxford Brookes…
Continue readingFour British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children’s Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper by Charles Butler I’ve owned this book since it came out in 2006 but have shamefully only just got…
Continue readingBurial Rites by Hannah Kent As I am myself a foreigner inspired to write about Iceland, I was clearly going to read this Australian’s debut novel. I am so glad I heard about it. It’s based on a true story…
Continue readingMagical Tales: Myth, Legend, and Enchantment in Children’s Books edited by Diane Purkiss and Carolyne Larrington This was the accompanying catalogue to the brilliant Magical Books exhibition that has been running this year at Oxford’s Bodleian Library and has been every bit as enjoyable…
Continue readingAccording to this article on the BBC website, Iceland is a country where one in 10 people will publish a book. I can understand that. The winter months in Iceland are long, dark, and cold, and for years the winter…
Continue readingGobbolino The Witch’s Cat by Ursula Moray Williams This has been a childhood favourite of mine for years, but it is also years and years since I last read it. Michelle Harrison, the author of the 13 Treasures series, put…
Continue readingThe Owl Service by Alan Garner “…why didn’t you cut the pattern into flowers from the start, you silly girl?” Roger asks his step sister at the end… because we wouldn’t have been given this gloriously enjoyable story if she…
Continue readingToday, Emma and I finally made it into Oxford for the Magical Books exhibition at the Bodleian Library. I am so glad that we did. The exhibition space at The Bodleian is small but we spent about an hour in…
Continue readingGhost Hawk by Susan Cooper Ever since I read Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, and the sequence of which it is part I have loved Susan Cooper’s books and she she has remained one of my favoured authors. Probably…
Continue readingI’ve always loved reading, and have never not had a ‘book on the go’. I also like writing them too. I can pinpoint the moment that I became a writer to my ninth birthday when my Grandpa gave me a…
Continue readingThe Red House by Mark Haddon This is the story of two families who haven’t really spoken in 20 years who decide to holiday together in a cottage on the Welsh borders after, and for the sake of, their recently…
Continue readingBracelet of Bones by Kevin Crossley-Holland From the beginning, the first book in Kevin Crossley-Holland’s Viking trilogy reads like an old Norse myth or saga. The language is, as you would expect from the author, beautiful and poetic, and he…
Continue readingA Thread Through Time by Deborah Shepherd This is Deborah Shepherd’s second novel, after her debut, The Underhill Buttons, and like with Buttons it is a classic time-shift novel of the kind that Penelope Lively used to write when she…
Continue readingThe Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman I bought this book on impulse after reading a review from a good friend. I didn’t have any idea what the book was going to be like. What I…
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