I cannot travel on a train without a book. I used to commute 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. This meant I read about 2 books a week. The last time I was on a train, I looked down the compartment and nobody was reading a physical book. Perhaps some were reading on their phones but their expressions suggested otherwise. For me, a book is a refuge and a time machine.
(more…)Category: Books
Book reviews, interviews with authors
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My reading life as a book reviewer, 1985 to 1992
When I left university, I thought, “Great. I will never have to read what other people want me to read.”
No more Walter Scott’s Waverley and no need to finish Nostromo.
Life is too short to finish books you are not enjoying.
Then I started Shelf Life, a book section on Channel 4’s teletext service, created with the sole purpose of allowing me to get free books.
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My reading life as a student, 1978 to 1985
In this series of posts, I am reviewing my reading life (not my Reading life).
Since my early reading life, I have kept a list of nearly 1,500 books I’ve read since 1978. Each year, I choose my book of the year.
At roughly 25 books a year with an average life expectancy, I might read another 425 books.
What must I read before I go to the library in the sky?
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My early reading life
On Friday afternoons at Middle Street School, our headmaster would smoke his pipe and do a general knowledge quiz with us.
I liked the sweet smell of his pipe smoke (this was the 1970s) and of success: I was good at quizzes.
“It’s not fair, Miss. Alex has got books!” complained a classmate to our teacher.
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Interview with William Horwood on Skallagrigg
William Horwood is probably best known for his Duncton Wood books. But for me, his novel Skallagrigg, based on his experiences as a father of a child with cerebral palsy, is his masterpiece.
(more…)It gets the most regular and deepest and most moving correspondence. It was the book I was most pleased to write. Skallagrigg is different; I feel it’s an important subject.
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Letter to Louis by Alison White
Alison White (no relation) is a mother of a child with cerebral palsy. Her Letter to Louis, published by Faber, is shocking about the callousness or perhaps carelessness of people’s reactions to a mother with a disabled child.
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Second-hand book dealing: how not to make money
“What did your parents do?”
I say, “My mother was a second-hand book dealer.”
“Did she have a little shop?”
No, she sold books by post in brown paper parcels tied up with string from various rented flats in Brighton. Books are heavy, so moving was always a bit of a struggle.
Her entry in the trade directory read “Established 1968. Private premises; postal business only. Very small stock second-hand and antiquarian books. Speciality: gardening. Catalogues on gardening: 4 a year.”
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Should writers get paid?
As a lifelong member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), I believe that writers and photographers should get paid for their work. I also think tech giants shouldn’t be able to scrape our creative work to make huge profits out of Artifical Intelligence. Controversial, I know, but that’s why people come (or don’t come) to this blog for my ground-breaking, game-changing, earth-shattering opinions.
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In The Picture: disability representation in children’s books
The retirement of my friend and colleague of over 30 years, Penny Dickinson, has brought back fond memories of one of my favourite projects that we worked on together, In The Picture.
In The Picture was an innovative, 3-year Big Lottery-funded project, created by the wonderful Susan Clow,. Aimed at the children’s book world, In The Picture wanted disabled children to find themselves represented in the books they read.
Since 2006, the impact from this project continues to be profound.
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Speaking for Ourselves: Joan Ross, 1939 to 2017
Joan Ross, contributed to the Speaking for Ourselves oral history of people with cerebral palsy at the British Library Sound Archive. She died in January 2017. Using extracts from her interview, we celebrate her life.
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