Tuesday 15 July 2014

Interview with author Andrew Clover

Welcome Andrew Clover, who is on a blog tour to promote his new book, The Things I'd Miss. I used to like reading Andrew's column, Dad Rules, in the Sunday Times Style magazine. I miss it! So it's pretty cool to be able to ask him a few questions here...

First book you remember reading?
A Fly Went By by Dr Seuss. I was walking through my brother’s room, I kneeled down to read it, and I still remember finishing it and thinking: I just read a whole book on my own! I can’t tell you what the plot was. I think it involved a fly, which went by.

How do you decide on what book to read?
Well I write literate love stories, so I read up the best stuff in that genre (Beautiful Remains, One Day, Where’d Did You Go, Bernadette..) While

Monday 14 July 2014

BOOK CLUB REVIEW: The Dinner (Herman Koch)

On a summer’s evening in Holland, two middle class couples meet for dinner at a rather pretentious restaurant.

Over the course of the meal, a dark and troubling secret is revealed about their teenage children.

Billed as a ‘Marmite’ book – you’ll either love it or hate it – the story hinges on our perception of the unreliable narrator, Paul, as we begin to question his motives and morality.

In fact, the dinner went down universally well with book club. The lack of ‘likeable’ characters wasn’t off-putting and we agreed that it was a story that drew the reader in.

A short book, set in one place and time (with the use of flashbacks), it reads like a well-made play, set over three acts.

Thursday 10 July 2014

Wallace and Gromit

   


    Latest column page 6, in which I compare my children to a well-known dynamic     duo....