Liverpudlians of a certain age will remember Blacker’s department store. Spread over six floors on the corner of Elliot Street and Great Charlotte Street, it was Liverpool’s answer to New York’s Macy’s. As a child, I adored the place. There was ‘Blackie’ the rocking horse that you could ride while the mums shopped – it … More The Dressmaker by Beryl Bainbridge
Easter 2013. Hubby had entered a golf competition at his golf club, meaning he would potentially be playing golf every single day across the whole weekend: one round on Good Friday, two on Easter Saturday, one on Easter Sunday, two on Easter Monday. This was the third year running and I’ll admit, I saw my … More The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather
‘Without families you don’t get stories.’ At the time of writing I’m on holiday on Corfu. In normal life my brain is chock-full of jobs-to-do but on holiday I have time to think, which isn’t always a good thing. One night (admittedly after several glasses of the local wine) I got upset about not having … More The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es
At the time of writing, Prime Minister May is in France to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day landings. By the end of the week she will have resigned, after a relatively short premiership dominated by Brexit. At the D day ceremony a 90-something veteran tells a BBC reporter that it took so much … More Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley
When I was a child I remember my mum having a blue and white plate. It was in the style of Chinese willow pattern but the stamp on the back said ‘made in Japan’, and depicted a kimono clad figure of indeterminate sex standing on an arched bridge over a softly flowing river, dwarfed by … More An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
“A man is a god in ruins” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature Kate Atkinson won the Costa Novel Award 2013 for Life After Life about the lives (yes, lives) of Ursula Todd. In 2015 she won it again with A God in Ruins, about the life of Teddy Todd, Ursula’s younger brother. Having read and enjoyed … More A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson
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