When my first book was published a little over a decade ago, I was chuffed to bits. Finally the hard slog of researching and writing a book and getting it out there was over. It had been a long journey from having the idea to realising it, and one that had cost me in every […]
School’s out, and as my summer offer begins – details below – my own summer reading is well underway. So far this year, my holiday reads are not so much the result of conscious choice as chance – books that turned up serendipitously in my life, embedded in their own little stories. The first, Love […]
Alex Wright’s short book Exploring Doubt is bang on zeitgeist. Situated firmly in the terrain between religious faith and unbelief, it turns on the thesis that ‘it is in hiddenness, not transparency, that life’s meanings may most eloquently be expressed.’ Along with a growing number of voices pointing to the limitations of a society […]
Sometimes it’s hard, to misquote Tammy Wynette, to be in publishing. There’s so much talk about the opportunities opened up by the digital revolution, but most of it is set against a background of change in which the struggle for readers and sales is greater than ever. But for me, there’s one digital-age development that […]
So Mother Teresa has finally become a saint. In the matter of Mother Teresa as an exemplar of whether religion is Good or Bad, I’m neither for nor against, and certainly wouldn’t go along with Christopher Hitchens’ condemnation of her as ‘a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud’. It’s a view which, as part of […]
I love this library card. It’s my membership card for Upper Norwood Joint Library in Crystal Palace, where I lived until recently. I’ve had a library card everywhere I’ve lived since the age of eight, but this library was quite my favourite. Housed in a purpose-built building of 1898, it is part of the high […]
The past week has been both a sad and inspiring one for lovers of libraries. As I write, the occupation of Carnegie Library in London’s Herne Hill is in its fourth day. Last Thursday 31st March, some sixty local residents of all ages and walks of life made camp there in a last-ditch attempt to […]
As 2016 gets underway, I’m beginning a three-year term on the management committee for the Society of Authors, the trade union for UK writers. The SoA has kicked off the new year with an open letter to publishers, part of an international campaign calling for fairer terms for authors. It’s a response to the under-recognised […]
When I started researching The Secret Life of God I was really just following a hunch. I had been spending time in the Middle East, where – despite the headlines about sectarian conflict – different faith groups have long lived side by side in the atmosphere of pervasive religiosity that the Arabs with most of […]
Travel writing is in crisis, for at least a couple of reasons. Firstly, it reflects – perhaps even amplifies – the wider crisis afflicting journalism: failing media outlets, derisory writing fees and an editorial culture that favours puff pieces over independent reportage. ‘The dream is over and the quickening plunge into poverty is unsettling,’ explains […]