Blog

Welcome to House With No Name. I write about everything from books and films to education, family and France.

Why I moved from the city to the country – and back to the city

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Sunday 23rd October 2011

My daughter was a year old when I got obsessed with the idea of moving to the country. We lived in Camberwell, south London, at the time and even though I loved the house, with its pocket-handkerchief garden and scruffy Georgian facade, I hated the traffic and noise. In the space of a few weeks, one neighbour was mugged in the next alley-way and another had her bag snatched while ...keep reading

House With No Name Weekly Digest: From The Hummingbird Bakery to We Need to Talk About Kevin

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Saturday 22nd October 2011

A new Saturday round-up of the week at House With No Name. House With No Name Book Review: Cecelia Ahern’s The Time of My Life House With No Name Film Review: We Need to Talk About Kevin House With No Name Writing Tips: How to Write a Great Plot House With No Name Cake Appreciation: The Hummingbird Bakery’s Halloween Specials House With No Name at the Cheltenham Literature Festival: Carol ...keep reading

FRIDAY BOOK REVIEW – The Time of My Life by Cecelia Ahern

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 21st October 2011

The thing I like best about Cecelia Ahern’s books is that they’re different to most chick-lit. Rather than turning out classic romances she weaves magical stories that take a sideways look at life. So far, her novels have featured letters from beyond the grave, a girl with an invisible friend and a book that can predict the future. Her new novel, The Time of My Life, is the story of ...keep reading

How to write a feature that works

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Thursday 20th October 2011

From Emily Carlisle to Sarah Duncan, fellow bloggers have given me loads of fantastic advice over the last few months. I’ve gleaned tips on where to go in New York from Liberty London Girl (the High Line and the Strand Book Store were just two), picked up delicious recipes from Eat Like A Girl and kept up to date with life in France from my old friend Colin Randall at ...keep reading

Michael Wright and Carol Drinkwater on living in France

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Wednesday 19th October 2011

Soon after I signed on the dotted line and the House With No Name officially became mine (help!), I wrote my first and only fan letter. Well, actually it was an email, but it was to a journalist called Michael Wright. I’ve been reading Michael’s Saturday column in the Daily Telegraph for eight years now and I’m still as gripped as ever by his tales of leaving his safe South ...keep reading

Annie Lennox at the V&A, The Hummingbird Bakery and ghosts that say "boo"

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Tuesday 18th October 2011

Goodness knows why, but I was once invited to be a guest on a local radio show. In amongst the chat about books, they played four of my favourite music tracks – like an inferior sort of Desert Island Discs, I suppose. Anyway, the first song I chose was the Annie Lennox number, No More I Love Yous, which I still adore. The memory of sitting in that dungeon-like Leeds ...keep reading

Film of We Need to Talk About Kevin is shocking but thought-provoking

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Sunday 16th October 2011

“Well, that was cheerful, wasn’t it?” muttered a middle-aged man as the credits rolled at the small basement cinema in Covent Garden where we’d just seen a preview of We Need to Talk About Kevin. The rest of us didn’t utter a word. I, for one, felt like I’d just been run over by a ten-ton steam-roller. I’d gone to the movie with my teenage daughter but was so emotionally ...keep reading

How to write a plot – novelist MJ Hyland’s advice

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Saturday 15th October 2011

A staggering 150,000 books were published in the UK last year – yet thousands of us yearn to add even more to the pile. Writing’s a long, hard, solitary business so I’m always looking for ways to escape my office. On a sunny autumn morning I came up with the perfect plan and drove 40 miles through the stunning Cotswolds countryside to attend a Writing a Good Plot workshop at ...keep reading

FRIDAY BOOK REVIEW – Comfort & Spice by Niamh Shields

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 14th October 2011

I’m addicted to cookery books. My children make fun of the rows of brightly-coloured tomes lining the kitchen shelves and joke that I only ever cook four recipes, all of them completely made-up. But even so, just looking at my cookery book collection instantly whisks me into a world of milk and honey, where everything is perfect and nothing ever sticks to the bottom of the saucepan. My current favourites ...keep reading

My short-lived teaching career and Kelvin MacKenzie’s explosive speech

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Wednesday 12th October 2011

My teenage son’s trying to decide which universities to apply to. The only trouble is that after poring over countless websites, they’re all starting to blur into one. Neither of us can remember which university boasts 22 Nobel Prize winners or which has a library with four million books. But one thing I know for sure is that my university ambitions are over. I learned my lesson the hard way ...keep reading

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