My dad was ten-and-a-half when the Second World War broke out.

And he was 12-or-thereabouts when his father took him out in the fields near their Warwickshire home and taught him how to load and fire the old rifle hidden behind a coat in the hallway.

The lesson was just in case Grandad wasn’t home when the Germans invaded and Dad needed to defend his mother and sisters and younger brother against the enemy.  Continue reading →

Maggie Thatcher was newly installed as the UK’s first female Prime Minister the last time I read Walter Greenwood’s Love on the Dole.

She took office in May 1979 in the middle of a recession and in the wake of Labour’s Winter of Discontent.

And, as she entered the door of No 10 Downing Street for the first time as premier, she spoke some lines from a prayer by St Francis of Assisi.

‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth…where there is despair, may we bring hope.’ Continue reading →

‘Dan had been commandeered by Stella Lastings (what was a History bod doing here?) I try to give Stella a wide berth, and not just because she is a size eighteen and needs wide-berthing.

I can’t understand how someone who teaches History is so caught up in the present, as in staff room goings-on.

There is no subject to do with anything or anyone in the university that she hasn’t got some take to add to the drama. If she can’t find any fresh gossip, she makes it up. She once started a rumour that Lee was having an affair with Mike Orme, our deputy dean, on the premise that the speed at which information flows accelerates in direct relation to the strength of the rumour i.e. the more likely a piece of gossip, the faster it would spread through the faculty.

And although nothing could be more unlikely than Lee having an affair with anyone, let alone someone who wears knitted tank tops, this particular rumour spread rapidly.

Meanwhile, Stella was doing her squirming act for Dan. She is pretty with silly blonde curls, and she squirms in a girlish way when talking to men as though she is an insecure six-year-old.

Having a visceral dislike for women like that, I couldn’t bear to watch. I know that’s judgmental of me, but why do girly women think squirmy/flirty is attractive?

Men apparently fall for it.’

One of the joys of belonging to a book group – besides talking books with friends – is discovering literary gems that might have passed you by otherwise.

My book group has been going for almost six years.

Time enough to have read some stunning books – although we don’t always agree about what makes a good read.

But that’s the fun of being in a book club, isn’t it? Continue reading →

Former magazine journalist Karen King, whose writing career started on the iconic teen magazine Jackie, is hoping for a perfect summer with the re-publication of her debut Young Adult novel, Perfect Summer.

The book, a futuristic thriller set in a society obsessed with beauty and perfection where it is a crime to be disabled, was runner-up in the Red Telephone Books YA novel competition in 2011.

Now re-published by Accent Press, Perfect Summer is the story of what happens when 15-year-old Morgan’s younger brother Josh is kidnapped. Continue reading →

Let me begin by listing the things I like about Bad to the Bone, first in a new crime thriller series by Tony J.Forder.

One: it’s well written.

Very well written.

Forder is clearly a writer, who cares about words and getting them in the right order and using the right word in the right place.

And he’s good at painting word pictures too. Continue reading →