On Fathers’ day considering  how fathers are represented in some of our most well-known classic novels is  irresistible. And the interesting thing is that so many are entirely absent. The orphan seems to be such a prevalent figure, after all, in 19th century literature. Jane Eyre’s father? Long gone, along with her mother, leaving her in the most untender hands of her aunt Reed and later the strictures of Lowood school and the dastardly Mr. Brocklehurst. Is Mr Rochester some sort of replacement Byronic hero/substitute father for her in the absence of her own? Dorothea and Celia in Middlemarch –...

This really is cheating the Desert Island Discs system. Not only have I swapped music for books, now I am insisting on 8 non-fiction as well as 8 novels. Last week’s selection came so easily to mind, whereas this week’s has taken a little more consideration … It is often said that men tend to read non-fiction more than novels. And that women tend to be the fiction addicts and set the factual stuff to one side. I am sure this is an inappropriate and unsubstantiated generalisation, but I have to admit to reading far less non-fiction, possibly because I...

You know how it goes: which 8 gramophone (they don’t actually still use that wonderfully archaic word, I don’t think, but it used to be there) records would you take to your desert island?  And lately, there’s been a variation  on the theme of a well-known (ostensibly …) person being invited to name the 8 pieces of music to take to their island with the choices of the ordinary public experiencing our current lockdown/crisis/whichever word you choose to use for the place we have been in since mid-March – being discussed, chosen and played. Which has led me to think of...

One of my favourite writers is Anne Tyler. She is someone who seems to make writing look effortless and easy – which, of course, shows what a great writer she is. To write simply, accessibly, and yet still  convey depth of character and emotion and say all you want to say – well, it’s very, very far from easy. In fact, it’s the most difficult thing in the world to do Rather like the best of actors who don’t appear to be acting at all, but simply are their character. Or dancers for whom steps and sequences seem to flow...

As every upstanding, respectable and notably patriarchal male of Victorian times knew, the popular image of the angel in the house was not just an image, but mandatory.  His wife had to aspire and fulfil the demands  of being passive, powerless, pious and pure.  At the same time, she was also expected to be charming, graceful and sympathetic without fail. At all times. No challenge there, then. This meek model of perfection was celebrated in Coventry Patmore’s poem of the same name written and widely admired in the 19th century and rightly attacked by Virginia Woolf in 1931 when she...

It has to say something about a nation’s priorities – observing what is first released out of lockdown. And I am sure that I am not the only read-aholic to notice that one of Italy’s first actions was to allow bookshops to open.  How wise and entirely appropriate! Switzerland has approved beauty salons and flower shops and are following up next month with secondary schools, libraries, museums and zoos. In Greece, hairdressers and small shops appear to have been among the early returners whereas in England we have been led to understand that our hair will languish lengthily until well...

Admittedly, as a writer, I tend to be a bit fussy about words. Some people might even call me obsessive. Few things annoy me more, for example, than that constant misuse of the word ‘literally’ – as in my heart was literally in my mouth or I was literally knocked over with surprise.  So it’s no wonder that this phrase, LOCK DOWN, is beginning to irritate me profoundly. Literally, in this case. Because vast swathes of the population are not actually in any kind of literal confinement that the word implies.  Prison inmates are locked up. Most of us are, literally, actually,...

Birthdays in lockdown – the latest of curious experiences in these most curious of times. And not my own. If I have to spend my birthday still in lockdown the world will be in a very grave situation since it’s not until that remotest of months, December. And if we have to be grateful for anything at the moment (apart from the fact of hopefully not falling ill – naturally – and the NHS, key workers et al )it’s that we are experiencing all this in late spring and early summer rather than in the darkest of dark times of...

My microwave needs cleaning. My writing files are chaotic. My desk drawers are a mess. My enormous under stairs cupboard is possibly home to some rare creatures and cultures and curious hybrid beings since it’s impossible to penetrate the layers of coats and jackets and scarves that lie prostrate within it – let alone the packing case that still resides in there from when we moved in – over 11 years ago. And I’ve been telling myself endlessly that one day, when I have time, I will sort all of the above. And more. One day when granted a quiet...