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Standing on the shoulders of historians gets you the best view: Is Hilary...
On Friday, I went to the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London to hear Hilary Mantel talk to Jim Naughtie about Bring Up The Bodies, the second book in her Cromwell trilogy. The auditorium was full, and...
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Writing Britain: Why the British Library has triumphed with their new exhibition
My hour at the British Library’s latest exhibition, called Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands was the best sixty minutes I’ve spent this week. I think I’m going to have to go back, such is the...
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Gatz comes to London: 8 hours of performance melt to a heartbeat
The first time I read The Great Gatsby I didn’t like it. I found it overblown, the characters idiotic and useless, the poetry of the prose sticking in the craw. What did I know. I was pretty idiotic...
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Only the Lonely?
Normally, I get the comment: ‘Oh you don’t seem like an only child,’ like it’s a bloody compliment. We are supposed to be the selfish, anti-social people who keep our own toenail clippings in a little...
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My very own miniature writing desk
I’m in the process of finishing my first novel, called The Miniaturist. Imagine my delight when I received this birthday present from two of my friends. I only wish I could sit at it and finish the...
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One little room an everywhere…
I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. So says Hamlet as he sums up the imaginative proportions of the human mind, thwarted...
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Utility and Beauty on the 6th floor of the V&A
If you have a spare two hours and you’re in London wondering what to do with yourself, may I suggest a trip to the 6th floor of the V&A Museum to visit their Ceramic Galleries? Steal those hours...
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COINS – a poem for my father’s 70th birthday
My father turns 70 soon. I don’t think he’s particularly looking forward to it. He’s a quiet sort of person; a former architect – artistic, grumpy, shy. The passing of time seems to have had little...
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Slash, yawn, sigh.
Ripper Street. Where to start? 2D women everywhere. Man’s world, male gaze, yawn violence. All at the peachy primetime slot of 9pm. And yes, yes, they will say – come on, it’s called Ripper Street...
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Just For Two Days
Last winter, I was staying in a friend of a friend’s cottage which had survived the flooding of the west country. Amongst the upturned spider’s corpses and the clogging furze of cobwebs on the...
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Flaking Quietly Onto Your Pizza – Mum, Dad, The Miniaturist and me
When I phoned my mother with the news that the United States were going to publish The Miniaturist, including the sum which had been paid at auction, she relayed it to my father, who was standing...
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