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Great autumn reads – and only two weeks to wait for Jilly Cooper’s new book
8th September | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
With the nights drawing in and an autumn chill in the air, I escaped to a remote Lake District farmhouse with a stash of new books to read. There are some great new reads out this month – including novels from two of my favourite authors, Elizabeth Buchan and Rosie Thomas. Elizabeth Buchan should be far better known than she is. Once a blurb writer for Penguin, she’s written ten novels, including...
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Jeffery Deaver and the art of the crime novel
25th August | 2 comments | 2 people like this
I’ve admitted it before and I’ll admit it again. I’m ridiculously squeamish and recoil from reading anything gory. But after reviewing books by writers like Ian Rankin, Peter James and Stuart MacBride over the last few months, I’ve begun to get a taste for crime novels. Why? Because when it comes to writing cleverly-plotted story-lines and razor-sharp dialogue, crime writers are second to none.
Reading a string of Jeffery Deaver’s novels... -
Proenza Schouler and the Wish Tree
18th August | 0 comments | 2 people like this
If the arguments were anything to go by, finding a holiday that suited both my 18 year old fashionista daughter and my bike-mad 16 year old son seemed impossible. She craved sunshine, art galleries and shops while he wanted high-octane action and excitement, preferably somewhere outside Europe.
In the end there was only one place that fitted everyone’s requirements. New York. Even so, the pair of them had to agree to compromise.... -
Reading an Alastair Sawday guide changed my life
5th August | 2 comments | 1 person likes this
The news that today is Alastair Sawday’s 65th birthday brought a wry smile to my face. The founder of Sawday’s Special Places to Stay will be utterly oblivious to this fact but reading one of his books changed my life. I’m not joking. Seven years ago, desperate to book a last-minute summer holiday, I bought a copy of his guide to self-catering properties in my local WH Smith’s and began...
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Muddling along
3rd August | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
Talk about stating the obvious. Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson has declared that no woman can have a high-flying career and be the perfect mother at the same time.
“The only way you can have it all is by delegating the running of the home to other people – which I don’t ever want to do,” she says in an interview with the US edition of Good Housekeeping magazine.I adore Emma Thompson... -
The benign Lord Mandelson
23rd July | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
I don’t know what came over me. Of all the events to take a BMX-loving, YouTube-obsessed fifteen-year-old to, why did I choose a talk by Peter Mandelson to celebrate the publication of The Third Man? The LSE was packed for the occasion, which saw Times editor James Harding quiz the ex-business secretary on everything from the Blair years to the fevered days following the May 2010 election. At a guess,...
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My sporting life
30th June | 0 comments | 2 people like this
Sport is a bit like Marmite. You either love it or hate it. I won a running race at primary school once and reached the heady heights of the under-12 netball team a few times but that’s about it. Until two months ago, that is. My teenage daughter suddenly decided to join the gym and after a few sessions declared it would be much more fun if we went together....
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Hooked on Lynda La Plante
8th June | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
Crime has never been my favourite fiction genre. I’m absurdly squeamish and hate reading anything gory.
But over the last three years I’ve become hooked on Lynda La Plante’s compelling Anna Travis stories. I was gripped the moment I read the first one, Above Suspicion, and read the rest the moment they were published.Silent Scream, out in paperback this week, is the fifth in the series. And yet again, despite the gruesome... -
Happy Birthday Emma Bridgewater
27th May | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
My son gazed at the kitchen dresser, silently counting the rows and rows of colourful mugs adorning the shelves. “Do you know?” he said finally. “We could invite 100 people to tea and not have to borrow any cups.”
Most of the cups are from Emma Bridgewater, the eponymous potter whose china adorns kitchens the length and breadth of the country. Manufactured in Stoke-on-Trent and sold all over the world, Emma’s... -
Trickier than it looks
5th May | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
Michael Gove’s promise that under a Conservative government teachers would have more power to discipline out-of-control pupils is fine in theory. But if politicians tried teaching they’d soon find it isn’t half as easy as it looks. With reports that some school corridors have become virtual no-go zones while others have brought in their police officers, CCTV and even airport-style scanners to ensure pupils aren't carrying knives, teachers deserve a...
CONTRIBUTOR
Emma Lee-Potter
Emma Lee-Potter is a journalist and author of four novels. She has two teenage children and spends her spare time worrying about the ramshackle farmhouse she bought in the south of France. The wreck has half a roof, assorted wildlife and an alarming damp problem but her friends assure her it all be perfect by 2020. She writes a weekly blog for Easy Living magazine.
