SEARED TO DEATH

My daughters once decided that I had far too many scarves and wraps, so they counted them (the ones they could find anyway) and announced that I had 52 and needed help. Why they were concerned I don't know (they make off with half my clothes anyway, and the dressing-up box and resident cats all benefit) but it's a good thing they've never counted my books. 

I haven't counted them myself, but the thing about living in a house full of books is that there's always something to read, never mind which room you find yourself in. And when you badly need something to distract you from the prevailing gloom (and the last half dozen literary best-sellers you bought were uniformly depressing) then at least you know there's always a PG Wodehouse or an old-fashioned crime novel lurking somewhere to cheer you up.

The last few months have seen the death of a friend and of a much-loved cat, as well as major illness and minor ailments, not to mention dental disasters, ocular migraines, cancelled holidays and death threats to our politician daughter. It has also been unnaturally hot and oppressive for Northern Ireland, and instead of being grateful for the endless dry weather, I've felt deeply homesick for southern Africa. So distraction has been needed, and the first book on top of my bedside pile was a novella. (I'm a big fan of novellas: at least if they're grim the pain is soon over.) 

This one was The Ferryman and his Wife, by Frode Grytten, the lyrical, dreamlike story of the last day of a Norwegian ferryman's life. It was an undeniably beautiful and unusual little book, but given the subject matter  not what I needed at the time. So I turned to Sarah Moss. 

I've enjoyed her books before and The Tidal Zone is a thought-provoking novel about a father's bedside vigil as his teenage daughter's life hangs in the balance following an anaphylactic attack. I've survived anaphylaxis myself on a couple of occasions, so it interested me all the more, but unfortunately I started reading on the same day that my sister in South Africa went into hospital for a routine operation which turned into an 8-week life-and-death nightmare. So in the end it was a bit too close to the bone for comfort.

Next I tried Maggie O'Farrell. I always look forward to reading her books and Land has a beautiful, vibrant cover. Inside though, I found it so utterly searing that despite the fact that she's such a wonderful writer, I had to give up. The terrible suffering of Irish famine victims, workhouse misery, child cruelty...oh god! To be fair though, in a better frame of mind I might have felt differently, and the reports I hear from other people have been good. Perhaps I'll try again another day.

My sister, I'm glad to report, is making progress at last, and luckily there have been things to celebrate.  But I suspect I'm not alone in longing for books that will take me away from the miserable realities of life, not drown me in even more! I want to be cheered, for pity's sake, not seared! 

So grateful thanks to the Slightly Foxed friend who mentioned Miss Read. I used to work in libraries full of her books, which were mostly borrowed by women I then saw as very old and old-fashioned (and who were probably a lot younger than I am now) so I dismissed them out of hand. And yes, Farther Afield is hardly cutting-edge, but it's gentle warmth and humour, and beautiful descriptions of both the English countryside and of Crete, were as comforting as being tucked up in bed with a glass of warm milk and honey. 

Rachel Joyce also did the trick with The Homemade God. In fact, I couldn't put it down. She writes well, her characters enthral you, and the wit and warmth perfectly balance the darker shadows. This one is the story of a famous artist, his adult children and his unexpected marriage to an unknown woman decades younger. There's also a sudden death, and an Italian villa on an island in a lake. What more could you possibly want? Well, a slightly happier ending perhaps, but you can't have everything, and it certainly took my mind off my troubles.

And finally, Arundhati Roy and Mother Mary Comes to Me. I don't read many memoirs or biographies (least of all about writers whose books I admire - authors aren't always as likeable as their books) but I picked this one up in the wonderfully quirky Little Acorns Bookstore in Derry, where we stopped on our way up to Donegal for a few soul-restoring days, and I'm so glad I did.

'

Jaw-dropping', 'inspiring', 'a tribute to thorny love and savage grace - a memoir like no other': for once all the praise is merited. And despite the hideous violence, poverty and political upheavals of modern India that she so movingly chronicles, it is a wonderfully funny, captivating and absorbing read. 

A remarkable woman and writer, and a truly remarkable story. Go out and get yourself a copy now.

SIGNS OF THINGS TO COME

Professor Gloom never fails to surprise me. In between the hours spent deciphering the mysteries of the universe (and those of bridge and golf) he reads murder mysteries and Georgette Heyer historical romances. These I am accustomed to, but last week's book was Just Another Dead Boy by Kelly McCaughrain. It's a Romeo and Juliet-style Young Adult novel full of 'that heady cocktail of hormones, life force and jaded ennui' so typical of youth. And so untypical of septuagenarians. Apart from the ennui, that is.

Now, Kelly is an exceptional writer, who regards Gloom as her own tame astrophysicist when she needs scientific advice, but I wouldn't have expected him to give her book more than a passing glance. Instead of which, he was hooked. He even came along to a Belfast Book Festival event, chaired by Children's Writing Fellow Shirley Anne McMillan, which featured four YA writers with new books: Kelly, Sue Divin (Runaway Road) Jenny Ireland (French Kisses) - all of them award-winning writers - and Stephen Daly, whose first novel The Last Death Poet I also enjoyed - to my own great surprise.

The book festival took place at the Crescent Art Centre (which never fails to deliver extremely well-run programmes of events) and Belfast's much-loved No Alibis bookshop ran a pop-up bookstore in the foyer. Of course, the island of Ireland has always been famous for literary talent, but Northern Ireland punches above it's weight, and there were an encouraging number of local authors on display. Lucy Caldwell, Jan Carson, Louise Kennedy, Bernie McGill: they're all wonderful short story writers as well as novelists. But it's the YA writers who seem to be stealing the show right now, and there are others like Sheena Wilkinson and Angeline King whose books I've also enjoyed - again, to my surprise.

The book I've most enjoyed recently though, is Donal Ryan's wonderful 'Heart, be at Peace', and I have Maggie O'Farrell's 'Land' waiting. I also recently discovered someone entirely new: Sofka Zinovieff. I'd heard her interviewed on BBC Radio 3's Private Passions, Michael Berkeley's music programme that regularly throws up memorable guests, and I was so engaged by her (and her Greek connections) that I got hold of her novel Putney. It turned out to be an engrossing, and in many ways surprising, read. I'm very much looking forward to reading The House on Paradise Street next.

I'm also looking forward to Gabriel's Moon. Like me, William Boyd is in his seventies, and has African connections. And it just so happens that the title of the  adult novel I'm publishing this year is Gabriel's Angel. And my two new middle-grade children's books are Moon's Travelling Circus and The Voyage of the Molly Moon, so all these Gabriels and Moons I take to be a promising sign. (Probably of the sort of straws that writers clutch at.)

If only...

Being a writer is bad enough; having to plug your own books is  a nightmare. Especially if, like me, you loath the whole marketing /publicity business. But this time I've had a brilliant idea, because the one thing I always enjoy is having all my friends round for a party. They're warned each time, on pain of death, not to bring any gifts, and they never pay the slightest attention. But this year  marks our 11th wedding anniversary. It will also be my 78th birthday and Gloom's 79th, so what I plan to do is throw a great big launch /anniversary/ birthday party at home, and instead of bringing the usual wine, flowers, chocolates, etc, every guest will be obliged to buy a book. Or possibly two.

But to get back to Gloom's surprising enjoyment of a YA novel (and mine). I've always been ambivalent about the whole YA category: in my day you went straight from Enid Blyton to Agatha Christie, Sci Fi or Mills and Boon, depending on your tastes. But now I think the publishers might be on to an even better thing than they realised. Let me explain: I've never in my whole life had a stye in my eye, but in the last month I've had two nasty, oozing little lumps in rapid succession. My optician confirms that it's age related - much like adolescent acne. So it seems pretty obvious that both Gloom and I are now entering second adolescence, and it's therefore only a matter of time before second childhood kicks in. 

It'll be Winnie the Who? and The Grumpalo next.

ONCE IN A BLUE MOON

There are two full moons this month: the Flower Moon on May 1st and a Blue Moon this coming Sunday, on the 31st. And because I have two moons of my own in mind this month, it seems a good time to mention the children's novels I'll be publishing later this year: Moon's Travelling Circus, and the sequel, The Voyage of the Molly Moon.

As a child growing up in Owl's House, that place on the southern tip of Africa that I remember with such affection, the stories I loved most were always about magic and enchantment. Princesses, goblins and deep, dark forests; witches, mermaids and dragons. (I still have shelves full of them, to share with the  grandchildren and to re-read myself.) 

Old favourites

Somehow though, I never managed to find a really magical story set in the part of the world I lived in. We had folk tales, animal and school stories, safari adventures, and books about ordinary, everyday things - many of which I loved - but no Faraway Trees, or ships that flew. They all seemed to belong to children in other far-off countries, and it didn't seem fair. 

My childhood ocean. Whales and sharks
often spotted, but no sea serpents

Which is why I wrote Moon's Travelling Circus, in which a girl with an African  mother and Irish father finds herself on a magical journey through African time and  space. An ancient amulet, a travelling circus, a sorcerer, a time-traveller, dragons and cats all play their parts. And I enjoyed writing it so much that I wrote a sequel - The Voyage of the Molly Moon - in which the main characters are reunited on a voyage around the northern coast of Ireland in search of something lost long ago. In this one there are sea-witches and a sea monster, mysterious lighthouses, and yes, a ship that flies. 

Sadly, both languished with my agent, who loved but couldn't place them. This is hardly surprising because my children's books are undeniably traditional. There are no major traumas or adult issues in them; in fact there are hardly any adults, apart from retired circus people and hotel proprietors whose guests rarely come in through the doors. But the handful of children who have read these stories have given me some wonderful responses. I still treasure the message from a book-loving great-nephew, beginning 'Great-Aunt Helen, this is the best book I have ever read in my LIFE!'  (And no, he wasn't in line for an inheritance.)

So they'll both be published under the Owl's House Press imprint created by Averill Buchanan, with beautiful cover illustrations by the wonderful Rebecca Elliot. (Detail from The Voyage of the Molly Moon on the left.)

And if you're going to publish two books, why not three for luck? Because Gabriel's Angel (completed last year) is my third adult novel. It's about a girl, a garden, a grieving artist, a grumpy old woman, a second-hand bookshop and a ghost. There are links, as always, to Africa and Ireland, and there is also, inevitably, a cat, but unlike my other two adult novels - The Traveller's Guide to Love and Life Study #2 - this one is not autobiographical. (Note to my family: you'll be quite safe reading it.)

It goes without saying that I'm lucky to be able to do this - and it will almost certainly cost me more than I'll ever make back - but for me the five books now under the Owl's House imprint will be tangible proof of years of work, and will, I hope, give pleasure to the occasional reader who borrows one from a local library, or - once in a blue moon  - actually buys one!

OWL'S HOUSE PRESS

I have a great affection for The Secret Bookshelf in Carrickfergus, not just because of my admiration for the owners, Jo and Chris, and the way they've turned this little bookshop into what it is - Best Indie Bookstore (Ireland) 2024 and 2026 - but because it's by the sea. A bookshop by the sea is my idea of heaven. What's more, I always come away with something unexpected. Jan Carson and Horowitz were safe bets, but I've never read anything by T J Klune. The House in the Cerulean Sea caught my eye because of the title. A combination of house and sea - much like bookshop and sea - is hard for me to resist. 

Even more unexpected was The Last Death Poet by Stephen Daly. A book billed as a Young Adult LGBTQ+ novel with a supernatural twist is about as likely to attract me as J D Vance's upcoming memoir about his conversion to Catholicism. Some of my best friends write YA novels (very well, as it happens) but I'm ambivalent about the category and I really don't like the supernatural. Still, I'd met Stephen Daly and I liked him very much. Plus he's local, and the book is set in Belfast, so I bought it. I fully expected to skip through it, or give up after a chapter or two, instead of which I'm half-way through, and I'm hooked. And if you can hook a 77-year-old pedant with limited patience for modern trends, then good for you!

It's also a relief to find that a book which has been widely praised is actually well-written. There's so much rubbish out there, and so many good books that never see the light of day, because getting traditionally published is becoming harder and harder. Which is why, like so many others, I've  turned to self-publishing. Either way, it's a bumpy road, with rather more downs than ups. There's nothing quite as exciting as that first book launch, or seeing your novel in bookshop windows, but then there's the library reading with a turn-out of four, including your husband. Although to be fair, your granny might also have been there. She's been dead for decades, of course, but there was a familiar sighing noise, and a faint smell of wintergreen. (This is what reading Stephen Daly does for you.)

Fortunately, I do have an up of my own to report, and it's connected to a small, rented house called Owl's House in the village of Fish Hoek, near the southern tip of Africa, where I lived for a time as a child. (See detail in autobiographic-art on the right.) On one side of the valley was the Indian Ocean, on the other the Atlantic, and of all the houses I've lived in, this is the one that I remember with the greatest affection and nostalgia. It had a verandah where swallows nested in the summer, a garden where I played with my brother, and a shadowy pond full of frogs and tadpoles. Inside, like all our houses, it was full of books, and it was where I first discovered the world of my imagination.

I've lived in many different flats and houses since then, and every so often I find myself back in some town or country and am tempted to revisit the places I once knew. I've thought about doing this in Northern Ireland, a country I first came to in 1970, but Professor Gloom thinks this is a bad idea. He's probably right. Although, once in Zimbabwe, a man rang our doorbell and explained that his wife, who was with him, had lived in our house many years before. The man's name was Dan Jacobson and he seemed quite surprised when I told him how delighted I was to meet him, a fellow South African whose writing I admired. They stayed for tea and later he sent a signed copy of his autobiographical Time and Time Again, which I still have. 

But to get back to the up I mentioned earlier: with the help of my wonderful editor and publishing director (thank you, Averill Buchanan!) I have a new creative venture. My two previously published adult novels, The Traveller's Guide to Love and Life Study #2, along with two middle-grade children's fantasies, Moon's Travelling Circus and The Voyage of the Molly Moon, are all going to be brought together under the roof of my own imprint. And they'll be joined by my third adult novel, which will be published later this year. 

No doubt there'll be plenty of downs to come, but for the time being it gives me great pleasure to unveil the logo. This, as you can see, is a delightful little owl, because the imprint itself is called Owl's House Press - as a grateful tribute to that long-ago, far-off house where my love of words first began.

STRANGER THAN FICTION

In my second adult novel, a woman living in Ireland is sent a nude portrait of herself, painted decades earlier in South Africa, with no indication of who, or where, it has come from. Then, a year after that novel (Life Study #2) was published, a portrait painted of me in Cape Town when I was about 18 years old, arrived, with no letter or explanation, in Northern Ireland. 

In this case I knew who the sender was: a friend and neighbour from my years in Zimbabwe who had gone back to Nebraska with her American husband. We'd never seen each other again after we left Zimbabwe, but we'd had occasional online contact, which was how I discovered she'd been diagnosed with cancer. She also wrote to say that she took my first novel, The Traveller's Guide to Love, to all her chemo sessions because it made her laugh. Then her husband asked for my address because there was something she wanted him to send me, and the painting duly arrived.

 

I have no memory of how that painting left South Africa, and by then my friend was in a hospice and could no longer speak. A few days later she died. So I will never know for certain how this particular portrait went half way round the world to end up here in County Down, but it now hangs on the wall, a constant reminder of someone dear to me, and a link to both my past and my books.

I'm a very slow writer: I've only written 6 books - 3 for children and 3 for adults - and by any reasonable reckoning (and certainly in monetary terms) I am deeply unsuccessful. But there are other books I've made, hand-written and illustrated, for people in my life who have meant a great deal to me: to commemorate births and weddings (my own second marriage is recorded in Professor Gloom Meets His Match) and once for a dog. But it was one I wrote in 1988 that started it off - which brings me to the next strange link between fiction and truth ...

My third novel, as yet unpublished, begins in Zimbabwe (where I lived and worked for 18 years) and ends with a young African visitor picking up a children's book in London and wondering whether the author could possibly be the childhood friend her mother had so often told her about. 

Now, in 1985 in Harare, I made one of the closest friends of my life. Her name was Linda Buchfink. She and her husband, Gary, had come out from Canada on a 3-year contract; their two children were the same ages as ours, and all of us got on so well that we spent a great deal of time together. We shared holidays and weekend trips, meals and books and bottles of wine; and in 1987 we all went to the races to celebrate my son's 9th birthday. (It was his request and I thought that if we gave each of the four children a sum of money which - when they inevitably lost it - it would be a good life lesson about the dangers of betting. In the event, they won.) 

When their contract was up, the Buchfinks went back to Canada, and we were bereft. But before they left we gave them a book about their time in Zimbabwe. It was called The Buchfinks in Africa. I wrote it, our two older children helped me illustrate it, and my then husband designed the cover and wrote it out in beautiful calligraphy. And we all cried.

But Linda and I never lost touch. For the next few years we wrote regularly to each other, sent cards and photographs and family updates, and looked forward to the day when we would visit them in Canada. Then, in January 1994, they flew up in a helicopter to go skiing, hit the side of a mountain, and were all killed. 

Friends and neighbours kindly let me know that copies of our book had been made for all the family, and sent letters and information about their funeral and memorials, but after that we somehow lost touch. A few years later I left Zimbabwe myself, returning to Northern Ireland with my youngest child. But I'd kept all my friend's letters and photos, as well as a smudged black and white photocopy of the book we'd made, and in all the years since, she and her family have never been far from my mind. 

Then, just before Christmas, my daughter (who has a public profile) received an email from a woman in Canada asking if she was any relation to the Nicholl family who had been in Zimbabwe in the 1980s, and whom she'd been trying to contact for a very long time. Many emails, text messages and an hour-long telephone conversation later, I not only find myself in touch with two of Linda's best friends, but for the first time in more than 30 years I can see our book again in colour! 

So there you are: not just two totally unexpected connections to the past, but a reminder that what you write can be rewarded in ways you could never have imagined. It is 32 years this week since our friends died, but as the last lines of that first book read, 'The sun that sets over Africa is the same sun that rises over Canada... and good friends are never very far away if you keep them safe in your hearts.' 

 A BOOKSHOP ON BOTANIC

This one's about a bookshop: a little, much-loved, second-hand bookstore that stood for 25 years at the bottom of Belfast's Botanic Avenue; 10 minutes from Queens University, 15 minutes from City Hall, and run by a band of extraordinary volunteers. 

The first time I passed it, the window was full of theological books, so I assumed it was some sort of religious shop, and went on my way. But this was 2001: I wasn't long back from 18 years in Zimbabwe and I badly needed a job, so when I saw an advertisement for a manager some months later, and discovered that the War on Want Bookshop was a charity bookstore with no religious bent, I applied for the job. The position was offered to me with such speed that I suspected no-one else had wanted it, which didn't bode well, but the moment I stepped through the door I knew I'd found my spiritual home. 

It had that slightly dilapidated Bohemian charm that I've always loved in old bookshops - the same could be said of many of the volunteers - and I fell instantly in love with the whole place. (Well, possibly not the toilet facilities and general lack of heating, but you can't have everything.) And the theological display I'd seen was  soon explained: it seemed each volunteer had their own section and they took it in turns to dress the window. So one would fill it with books on gardening and stately homes on Monday and on Tuesday someone else would replace these with the works of Lenin and Mao Tse Tung.

They also had very strong views on what should and shouldn't be sold.  Volunteer in charge of Religion, handing me a book, 'This here's the Catholic religion, Helen. We don't sell Catholic books.' Me, handing it back: 'You do now.' 

In fact, there were Protestants, Catholics, Quakers and Communists on the staff; there were Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists and Ba'hais; housewives, academics and the unemployed. There were ageing Hippies, students both local and foreign, at least one White Witch, and arty types of every sort. In short, it was a glorious, welcoming cultural stew. And I haven't even started on the customers...

The volunteers themselves were altogether the most principled, strong-minded and free-spirited lot you could hope to meet, and they had a shared passion for their work. As one of them said, it was a place full of her favourite sorts of people: readers and lunatics. And although I was foreign, emphatic, and prone to disaster, they treated me with such kindness that I will never be able to thank them enough. They gave me meals and loans and lifts and gifts and included me in their Christmas celebrations; they brought me home-made jam and bread and took me to hospital in emergencies; one of them even shared her car. In short, they treated me, and my children, like members of their own families. 

As for the customers, they were loyal to a fault, although occasionally hard to get rid of. Once, in desperation, after pleading unsuccessfully with the last straggler to go home, I switched out the lights. Whereupon he simply took his book to the window to take advantage of the street light. Books weren't always easy to get rid of either. I carted a pile round to the local dump one evening, only to find a beaming well-wisher on the doorstep the next morning. 'Just look what I found down at the dump' she said, and staggered in with a familiar-looking crate...

But most of our customers went out of their way to help. There was the Queen's academic who sold videos to his students and brought us the proceeds; the then Attorney General who gave his time and expertise to advising us on rare books; the owners of local bookshops who sent us surplus stock; and all the Belfast book lovers who supported us for so long. And then there was John Gamble, owner of Emerald Isle Books on the Antrim Road. He was a gentle, courteous man, a noted authority on Irish books and a generous supporter of War on Want. He came every couple of months to look over anything of particular interest that we'd put aside, and each of these sessions was a master class in book evaluation. He was also a wonderful fund of stories about the book trade.

The shop not only brought me many friends (and a lot of useful material for my first adult novel, 'The Traveller's Guide to Love', which features a second-hand bookshop) it also brought me my husband. We were married in 2015 and all the volunteers were invited to the wedding - each one bringing the only present we had asked for: a second hand book. Or books. Our gifts included a full set of Dickens, a Guinness World Records in which my husband's discovery of the fastest-rotating star was listed (some blighter found a faster one soon after, so the fame was fleeting) and a magnificent collection of novels. We have them all still, reminders of friends past and present.

So along with so many others I have reason to be forever grateful for the part played in my life by the War on Want Bookshop, and to mourn the fact that it is no longer there. After I retired in 2015, the exhausting, poorly-paid, but always satisfying task of running the place passed into the expert care

of my dear friend and colleague, Rosana

Helen & Rosana

Trainor, and in the fullness of time War on Want became Self Help Africa. But in June this year it closed, along with all the other Self Help Africa shops in Northern Ireland. It happened almost overnight, with remarkably little explanation, and the distress caused to both staff and customers has been considerable. But our volunteers were never less than resilient (we threw a final party at the end of July at which the oldest merry-maker was in her nineties) and I hope that every single person who ever worked for War on Want/Self Help Africa will at least look back on their volunteering days with as much affection and gratitude as I do.

This is for them all, but especially Rosana, the Captain who went down, so to speak, with her ship...

 

TRIGGER HAPPY

WARNING!  THE CONTENT OF THIS BLOG MAY CAUSE DISTRESS and I apologise for any hurt caused by previous failures to provide trigger warnings. 

Actually, I had no idea what trigger warnings were until I read some responses to an article in a literary journal, which alerted me to the fact that some modern readers feel they should be warned of any content that might distress them. My own preference would be to make an informed decision based on the blurb, then close the book and/or hurl it across the room if I found the contents displeasing. But of course we all have different requirements, although I do rather wonder where one would draw the line: 'This novel contains scenes of sex/ violence/ gluttony/ shocking behaviour in church' etc, etc? Perhaps publishers should just stick with 'This novel contains scenes from Life'? 

Anyway, I'm afraid this blog does contain shameless self-marketing because my recent novel 'Life Study #2' has been reissued with a greatly improved cover. (See above.) I have also, for the first time in my life - and I take it as a great compliment - acquired Irish Writer status. At least, I have in The Secret Bookshelf in Carrickfergus. (The book can also be bought from Amazon, and from Stewart Miller's in Holywood and Books, Paper, Scissors in Belfast.) 

The reason I'm so happy about this status is that although I have Irish family, and have lived here on and off for more than 30 years, I was born in South Africa, where my novel begins; and even though I grew up there (and later spent 18 years in Zimbabwe) I doubt that anyone thinks of me as an African writer. Of course, literary history is full of expatriate writers - and there's a great difference between choosing exile and being exiled - but there are times when we'd all like to feel we belong.

In my Irish Pages Literary Diary - bought from the Linen Hall Library because it fell open at an excerpt from Kilclief, a book of essays by an old friend, Patricia Craig. One of the quotes is from Deirdre Mask (Fitting In) in which she writes about this struggle to belong that newcomers to Ireland so often face. Mind you, there are degrees of outsider-hood: in Northern Ireland, the Irish, English, Welsh and Scots count as more or less extended family. Americans and Antipodeans are distant relatives (and there are times when we're all grateful for the distance) but by and large the rest of us are Foreign. (Although paler, English-speaking types are less foreign than others.) Anyway, the diary is beautifully produced, with well-chosen literary excerpts opposite each page of entries, just enough room to record essentials, and a few pages for Notes at the end. 

To emulate Pepys, you'll need something different: a notebook or a journal, but if you're planning to bare your soul, just bear in mind who is likely to read your diaries when you're dead. Not all family members will be as brave as Nigel Nicolson. His Portrait of a Marriage, the story of his mother Vita Sackville-West's marriage and affairs is the subject of an article by Ariane Banks in the latest edition of Slightly Foxed. (My favourite literary quarterly, now in its third decade, and long may it continue.)

Keeping a diary, or journal, is still popular, unlike letter-writing. I sometimes think I'm one of the last people on the planet to write actual paper letters and post them. (I also have a passion for stationery: for postcards, origami-inspired letters and - my new favourite - Japanese Haiku note cards.) The incomparable Edward Gorey didn't just write letters, he sent them in illustrated envelopes: 'From Ted to Tom' is a wonderful record of these glorious creations, although how they a) actually made it to the right address and b) weren't stolen en route is a mystery.

Other books I've read lately include Elisabeth de Waal's memorable 'The Exiles Return', an autobiographical novel (in a beautiful Persephone edition) about exile and a postwar return to Vienna. 'Guilty by Definition' is entirely different: an enjoyable mix of crime and language set in Oxford, by Susie Dent, and Antoine Laurain's 'An Astronomer in Love' was bought for my astronomer husband's Christmas stocking and was liked by us both. I'd also recommend Giorgio Bassani's The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles - a powerful novella about a forbidden relationship between a Jewish student and an older doctor in Fascist Italy. Lastly, I'm enjoying Ian McEwan's entertaining Sweet Tooth, as well as a collection of stories with a common theme by a variety of well-known authors: 'Ovid Metamorphosed', edited by Philip Terry, who was himself born in Belfast.

Christmas is now a distant memory, St Patrick's day has just passed and Spring is in the air. Incidentally, St Patrick's falls on the same day as that of St Gertude, the patron saint of cats. But oh no, how thoughtless of me! I've probably triggered panic attacks in half a dozen ailurophobes out there. I do apologise. And if you're thinking of buying my book, I should warn you there are multiple triggers: love, life, loss, art, food, frequent references to nudity, and a journey through changing times. You might want to read something safer. 

DISASTER PARTIES AND OTHER DIVERSIONS

Many years ago, when we lived at a school in Zimbabwe, I used to throw parties for female staff and friends - soirées, to which no men were invited. The idea was to give a group of women from many different countries and backgrounds a chance to let their hair down away from domestic obligations and get to know each other better. We ate, drank, laughed, danced and generally had a much better time than our male colleagues and partners - the nearest most of them got to parties was post-match beer drinking in the school pub. And yes, there was a school pub, probably because we were 12k from the nearest town so it was safer to have staff drinking on campus than disappearing into the night and possibly not getting back at all. (In another rural setting, three Irish friends stumbling back through the night heard a car screech to a halt, a door was flung open, and a voice yelled, 'Get in you fools - lions around!')

Back in Belfast, in a small terraced house off the Ormeau Rd, I revived the soirée habit, except that now we called them Disaster Parties, the reason being that all the women I knew led lives that were full of small disasters: work and money problems, relationships, no relationships - as well as the bigger ones: serious illness, divorce, widowhood...marriage. So we cheered ourselves up with food, wine and conversation. There wasn't room to dance in that house, but our evenings always included a bit of fortune-telling with The Ladies Oracle. 

If you've never encountered this Victorian gem, it's full of questions like 'How many lovers shall I have?' 'What must I do to please him?' and 'Should I confess all?' The answers were usually unsympathetic: 'Shall I soon be courted?' once got the response 'What fool would thus waste his time?' We always fell about laughing. The only man who ever turned up at one of these events (uninvited) was a peculiar astronomer, who was allowed to stay because of my fondness for his partner. My own Oracle forecasts were rarely favourable, but in the end I married this man, and my life took a surprising turn for the better. So much better, in fact, that I now look back on those disaster party years and marvel.

These days I have parties for writers, because God knows all writers need cheering up. We pretend we're there for serious literary discussion, but the truth is that we just eat, drink and let our hair down. And in view of the current hideous state of the world - and the approach of the so-called festive season - you might like to think about throwing a disaster party too. You don't have to do a Virginia Woolf's Mrs Ramsay, a Gatsby or a Bilbo Baggins shindig - no slow-cooked boeuf en daube, no orchestras or fireworks - you just need a few kindred spirits, and if you let everyone bring something to eat or drink, it won't even be expensive. It'll be cheaper than therapy anyway.

And, it goes without saying, stock up on books that are guaranteed to cheer, even if everyone else thinks they're rubbish.  Crime (nothing like a good murder to warm the heart) romance, biographies, whatever. Kate Atkinson's Death at the Sign of the Rook is a good bet. It descends into slightly farcical mayhem at the end, but is still immensely enjoyable - I've always liked ex-detective Jackson Brodie, and Lady Milton made me laugh out loud. (And while I'm at it, I'm re-reading Atkinson's Shrines of Gaiety: it didn't appeal first time round but, as so often happens, second time round is better.) 

I also enjoyed Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt - a surprise this, because everything about the look of this novel screamed 'You will hate me!' but the moment I began to read, I was trapped - much like the giant Pacific octopus at the heart of the story. Tova, the widowed aquarium cleaner, is a memorable character, but it was Marcellus the octopus whose voice really stole my heart. 

Amor Towles' Table for Two is next in line, then Begin Again by Ursula Orange, and several others: Danielle Dutton's Margaret the First (a novel about the first Englishwoman to write specifically for publication and described by the Guardian as 'luminous') and Nina Stibbe's Man at the Helm. 

And if you're looking for presents, there's a wonderful treat called At Home in a Book by Lauren O'Hara in which she illustrates the homes of various classic literary characters: Anne of Green Gables, A Little Princess, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Hook's ship, etc...guaranteed to appeal to any reader still eleven years old at heart. 

Lastly, let me recommend the genius of Edward Gorey. The Haunted Teacosy (A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas) is one of my favourites. I'm pleased to see that Gorey gets an article by Flora Neville in the winter edition of Slightly Foxed. As she writes, adults tend to underestimate children when it comes to books, and Gorey's 'speak to children as they are, not as we might wish them to be'. (PS If you really love someone who loves well-written, interesting, quirky and often forgotten books, buy them a subscription to Slightly Foxed.)

I also recommend avoiding any novels with blurbs featuring the words 'gut-wrenching' 'apocalyptic' 'toxic masculinity' 'brutality' and 'historic trauma'. But each to their own: the important thing is that when you switch off the television, put down the paper or close the latest deeply-meaningful (and infinitely depressing) novel, you have something comforting to turn to.

Of course you could just stick to drink and drugs, but by and large, books are cheaper and less harmful. So good health and happy reading to you all, and let's hope that next year is a little bit less grim. And if it isn't, try throwing a disaster party or two. 

By Hook or by Crook

When I was a child, we lived for a while in a small pink-washed villa called Owl's House. It had a living and dining room, kitchen, two and a half bedrooms, one bathroom and a verandah. It's a house I remember with great affection because it was there that I really learned to read, and there that my imagination first took flight.

Today I live in an old house on another continent, with an attic playroom and a study lined with children's books. We have seven grandchildren (so far) and although all are lucky enough to have parents who encourage reading and creative play, the outside world is now such a noisy, fast-moving, violent place that I feel the best thing we can give them is a space as far removed from it as possible, where their own imaginations will be free to roam.

I'm not the only one to worry about our children's world, judging from the responses to something I wrote recently. I'd had a rejection letter from a well-known agent. She had read and loved an earlier book I wrote about a magical journey through African time and space, and now she'd read and loved the sequel. This one has sea witches, serpents, and a mysterious lighthouse off the coast of Ireland, but however much she liked them - and she was lavish with her praise - she knew that she'd have difficulty placing them. The problem is that they're old-fashioned, in the sense of being traditional, magical adventures, and worse, they have no 'hook'. For hook read any of the fashionable issues and concerns that currently pervade so many children's books. I think the saddest response came from someone whose grandson had said he didn't want to know about these grown-up things, he just wanted to be a little boy.

Still, traditional writers shouldn't lose heart. What comes around goes around, and who knows? One day even  Enid Blyton might find herself redeemed. Parental responsibility could make a comeback too: after all, you don't have to buy your kids the latest badly written rubbish. You can even march into your local school and complain (as a writer friend did recently, more power to her elbow) when each pupil in her child's class was given a copy of a celebrity author's latest churned-out offering. Why not one of our many excellent, local writers, for goodness sake? Of course children won't always read the books you want them to, but there's nothing to stop you going into your local library or charity shop to look for alternatives: books you once enjoyed yourself, books that can be read aloud...and if it sounds good read out loud, it's probably ok. 

The autumn issue of Slightly Foxed not only features two wonderful children's writers in Maurice Sendak and Leon Garfield, it also has an article about A E Housman by David Fleming. He was converted to poetry, he writes, 'by the simple expedient of learning to read it out loud'.  In that long-ago pink house, my mother used to recite Matthew Arnold's Forsaken Merman to us at bedtime, an inspired choice for children who lived so close to the Indian Ocean - 'where great whales come sailing by, sail and sail with unshut eye, round the world for ever and aye'. But how many parents now have time to read aloud, or can compete with all the electronic devices vying for attention?

To get back to Slightly Foxed though, Hazel Woods 

added yet another title to my  endless shopping list: Dorothy Whipple's childhood memoir, The Other Day. And who knew Mary Norton of The Borrowers fame had written romantic fiction for women's magazines and led such an interesting life? There's also such an intriguing tribute to Elspeth Barker (by her daughter, Rafaella) that I bought her only novel, O Caledonia, at once. And yes, the writing is glorious, but I don't think I could ever bring myself to read it again. I found the story of the awkward, unlovable, Janet and her brief existence deeply unsettling. And no, I didn't think it bore any relation to I Capture the Castle, which is one of my all-time favourite novels. Don't take my word for it though - lots of people love it. And luckily Dorothy Whipple is now restoring my equilibrium. 

And one last story of childhood: Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise. I love his writing and this was no exception. The story of Yusuf, pawned to pay his father's debts in colonial East Africa, somehow manages to be poignant, violent, beautiful and captivating all at once. I felt that Yusuf (unlike Janet) would survive.

I'm not sure my own children have read any of my novels (the adult ones are probably a bit too autobiographical for comfort - no-one really wants to read about their mother's misspent youth) but they do remember very fondly the books I read aloud when they were young. (Including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - both still in favour, I'm glad to see.) I'll probably self-publish the two rejected middle grade stories, even if it still feels a bit like cheating, and in the mean time, the wheels of publishing will go on spinning to maximise profits - understandably, I suppose. It's just our children who are so often being short changed.

Old Friends

Long, long ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and I was young, we were taught to respect our elders and listen politely when they told us some boring story for the umpteenth time. This wasn't because of their superior wisdom (by and large, they were even stupider than we were) but because it was understood that life got harder to navigate as one grew older.

Of course, when we all became obsessed with eternal youth, respect went out the window: why would you offer anyone your seat on the bus, or not trample them underfoot in the race to board a train if they're pretending to be the same age that you are? Well, let me tell you something: no matter how hard you try to avoid it, you too will one day be creaking, crotchety, hard of hearing and endlessly repeating yourself. You will also have to say, to people you know perfectly well, I'm so sorry, I seem to have forgotten your name. (Although I suppose that's slightly better than I'm sorry, I seem to have forgotten my name...)

Age does bring compensations. Doctors stop caring how much you drink (you can see the younger ones thinking, If I was that old, I'd also drink...) and there's more time to read or listen to podcasts. Professor Gloom, 77 and counting, currently enjoys The Rest is Politics with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell, and I  love the Slightly Foxed podcasts, the most recent of which featured Barbara Comyns. She's a writer I always admired, but I had no idea how similar our lives had been. Comyns, like me, went to art college and worked as an artist's model in her misspent youth. My recent novel, Life Study #2, available on Amazon - sorry, I'm officially the world's most hopeless self-publicist so I have to say that - draws on my own experience as a model. (See rare, clothed, example below.) She also moved a great deal and spent 18 years in another country - in her case Spain, in mine Zimbabwe. Anyway, Our Spoons Came from Woolworths - which I've just re-read - is an extraordinary book. As Maggie O'Farrell says in the foreword, Sophia is a heroine in every sense, and one you will never forget. 

Immortalised (with clothes) in 1965

There are a lot of things you shouldn't do when you're over 65 (like run for President) but you can please yourself in so many other things - like not reading anything you don't want to. I often avoid the much-praised, most talked about, novels of the moment but I have to say that I enjoyed Yellowface by Rebecca Kuang more than I expected. And a really interesting and engaging debut novel by Tibilisi-born Leo Vardiashvili is Hard by a Great Forest. 

Old friends bring other benefits. Often you've forgotten so much of the story that it's like reading a new novel, and quite often you enjoy a book more on the second or third reading. (The corollary is that you sometimes re-read a book you loved in your youth and find yourself thinking, what a load of pretentious twaddle.) Of the dozen or so books I've read lately, Rose Tremain's Absolutely and Forever and Willa Cather's A Lost Lady were both new finds, and Jennifer Johnston, Molly Keane and Barbara Pym have all been re-read with pleasure. A good murder is a safe bet too, and for reliably well-written, witty crime, Elly Griffiths is hard to beat. Ruth Galloway, her overweight, untidy, forensic archeologist with a complicated private life, is a particularly endearing character.

Lastly, the book that has most impressed me recently: West, by Carys Davies. Set in American pioneering days, it's been described by critics as spell-binding, haunting, luminous. For me it is a small masterpiece.

I notice there's only one man on this list but I have Sebastian Barry, William Boyd and Adulrazak Gurnah waiting (none of them spring chickens either) as well as The Coast Road, a debut novel by Alan Murrin which looks very promising. And although I think I may have said (more than once) that I'm not going to write any more blogs (or novels, come to that) when you're as old as I am, dear reader, you get a bit forgetful and tend to repeat yourself...because you see, long, long ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth...