Birth. “A detaching, a loosening of something, then the pain of it.” A small, curled and crinkled creature is wrested from that pain. But then, instead of the long-awaited cry of a... Read more »
My earliest reading memoryThe headteacher in my village primary school used to recount terrifying Cumbrian ghost tales to the class, which I’m sure was formative. I can also still hear my mum sing-songing rhymes; “Oranges... Read more »
Anna North’s fourth book, Bog Queen, is a stranded or braided novel. First “a colony of moss” speaks – or rather, does not speak, but “if such a colony could tell the... Read more »
Philip Ignatius Brooke – aristocrat, playboy, countercultural icon, owner of a 1,000-acre estate in the Sussex countryside – is dead. And no one is especially sad. Certainly not his immediate family, who,... Read more »