When I was little, my parents joined a bookclub which specialised in doing lovely books for kids. Not just good reads, great pics – this was really special editions of classic books. It was a decision that still feels like a gift now – and I still have many of them. This is a point …
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Rather a while back, I lived in a town with hills. Doesn’t sound that exciting – lots of towns have hills. But this town was flat plain on one side, and suddenly: Hills. They dominated the town. And the imagination. I was able to sit on my bed, look out of the window, and see …
Continue reading “Ted Hughes, Alan Garner: the power of landscape”
No, it’s not a typo. Nor is it a Moleskine. My mother introduced me fairly early on to the four Molesworth books, brought together in this compendium. It was the easiest way to reference it here – and an early example of kill yourself laughing funny. Humour is obviously a personal business. So Molesworth may …
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When planning these posts, my aim was not to comment on writing techniques I’d learned from books, but things: ideas, ways of living, ways of being. So it’s really time to mention the book responsible for a major change in my teens: Whale Nation. This was the late 80s. Environmentalism was popping up a bit …
There’s a certain annual we own that has been doctored. One of the comic strip stories was deemed too scary to be found unexpectedly – I think it was one illustration in particular. Solution: trap the story so it can’t come out. Now some people find Scooby Doo too much to begin with, and others …
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