I adored Ruth Rendell’s books and as today would have been her 86th birthday I‘m rerunning part of a blog I wrote about her back in 2013. It has just been announced, by the way, that a new award is being launched in her memory by the National Literacy Trust and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society. The annual Ruth Rendell Award will be presented to the author or writer who has ...keep reading
The one thing that puzzles me about literary festivals is the way they stick several very different writers together under a title like Writers’ Roundtable and wait to see where the discussion goes. That’s what happened at the Oxford Literary Festival last week when the organisers teamed up Samantha Shannon, Jesse Armstrong and Eliza Robertson. They are a highly accomplished trio but as writers have very little in common. Samantha Shannon ...keep reading
When I spotted that Kazuo Ishiguro was the star turn at the Oxford Literary Festival’s inaugural event this year I snapped up a couple of tickets in double quick time. Ishiguro doesn’t do many events so I knew I couldn’t hang about or every seat would be gone. Sure enough, when I arrived at the stunning upper chamber of Oxford Town Hall the place was packed – all of us ...keep reading
Interviewing is an awful lot harder than it looks. But when someone does it well it’s a joy. Peter Kemp, chief fiction reviewer at the Sunday Times, did a splendid job with Sue Townsend at the Oxford Literary Festival this week and he was just as good when he interviewed crime doyenne Ruth Rendell two days later. He was authoritative, entertaining and knew Rendell’s books like the back of his ...keep reading
Sue Townsend doesn’t give many interviews so I was determined not to miss her appearance at the Oxford Literary Festival this week. She’s 66 now, registered blind, confined to a wheelchair and suffered a stroke at Christmas. But for a whole glorious hour, her anecdotes about her childhood, her work and how she came to write her Adrian Mole books made the audience at the Sheldonian Theatre rock with laughter. ...keep reading
The Oxford Literary Festival is a fabulous event. I still can’t get over the fact that I can shut my front door and be at Christ Church within twenty-five minutes (if I walk fast), listening to some of the best writers in the world discussing their work. I haven’t quite got over William Boyd’s talk last year, when he revealed that he spends two years researching and planning his novels ...keep reading
Just before nine each morning I spot hordes of anxious-looking students hurrying along the pavement below my office. It’s exam time in Oxford and the undergraduates are on their way to the exam hall up the road. The Starbucks round the corner is full of them, all drinking endless cups of black coffee and poring over closely-typed revision notes. Forget the old saying about policemen seeming absurdly young as you ...keep reading
If I’m honest, the main reason I booked to hear Jane Shilling’s talk at the Oxford Literary Festival was because she’d been teamed up with Rachel Cusk. Cusk is the writer whose recent memoir about her divorce, Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation, has prompted a flurry of criticism and debate. But at the start of the discussion, the audience (like me, mostly middle-aged and female) was told that Rachel Cusk ...keep reading
The massive marquee at Christ Church was full to bursting for William Boyd’s talk at the Oxford Literary Festival on Saturday night. The event was a sell-out and fans were so keen to hear him talk about his latest novel, Waiting for Sunrise, that an orderly queue formed outside – just in case there were any empty seats. In a way, Boyd, with slicked back hair and wearing an immaculate ...keep reading
Three bestselling writers. Three great novels. And three very different pairs of shoes. Those were the first things I spotted when I went to an enthralling Oxford Literary Festival talk by Elizabeth Noble, Jane Fallon and Fiona Neill yesterday. So, just for the record, Noble wore beige ballet pumps, Fallon sported strappy Louboutins (the distinctive red sole was a bit of a giveaway) and Neill was in Converse. The trio ...keep reading