News

For many of us the past 18 months have been difficult to measure without the usual landmarks of holidays and celebrations. For others it has been a unique opportunity to take stock and to create something rather special.

Earlier this year, the illustrator and printmaker Angela Harding was invited to compile a record of her extensive portfolio of work and this month a beautiful new book will be published for us all to share in her meticulous, stylised appreciation of the natural world.

You will have seen her work in magazines such as 'Country Living', the covers of bestsellers such as 'The Salt Path' and the children's book 'October, October' and recently on advent calendars, jigsaws, greetings cards and even tea cosies!

Many of these designs are included in the book as well as some new pictures too. They have all taken many hours to complete, studiously carved in lino with colours applied through silkscreen.

Although I had originally invited Angela to visit us in Woodbridge to talk about her work, and how this book came about, the ongoing covid situation made an event seem increasingly unwise.

I realise this will come as something of a disappointment but I think we have a rather wonderful outcome as an alternative.

Angela has invited us to meet her in her studio through Zoom. She will be able to show us the printing presses she uses and her hand tools. There will be examples of work in progress and even the view from her window over the fields beyond.

Angela loves the opportunity to visit Suffolk, having a boat on the Deben and coming here each summer to sail the rivers, but she is also keen to share with us the inspiration she gains from the countryside on her travels in Scotland and the south-west as well as her home in Rutland.

This will be a fascinating, inspiring and entertaining event for a Sunday afternoon, on 28 November. 

The difficult events over the past months have caused us all to look at life, work and relationships differently.

For some people this has prompted profound changes, for others it's been a case of being more aware of the life we're leading, and better appreciating those people who help us to live it to the full - doctors, nurses, teachers, shopkeepers and delivery drivers all immediately spring to mind.

However, we shouldn't forget that we all have a part to play. And I was intrigued to read about a recent arts event which sought to illustrate this fact.

It was staged over 12 hours and invited 'workers of the world' to step forward to describe what they do for a living. Participants were invited to answer questions or to carry out their everyday jobs in front of an audience.

A coffee roaster served coffee while explaining how she loved talking to customers. A former drug dealer described how he had changed his life around. A decorator spent hours papering walls. A cook prepared a dinner to share with the audience. A midwife explained the birth of a baby and an astrophysicist talked about the stars. And the cast list continued. 

Described as an 'epic documentary theatre performance', it was called 12 Last Songs and took place at Leeds Playhouse last week. 

"We had some amazing moments in rehearsal where we were bowled over by the extraordinariness of people and their lives," the co-artistic director Richard Gregory told the 'Guardian'. "So many people are unaware of how remarkable the ways they spend their time are."

We'll be looking at other people's lives through literature when we meet together for book group again tomorrow evening... 

Thank you for reading.

The winner of this year's Booker Prize will soon be announced - the ceremony revealing which of the six shortlisted titles will triumph takes place on Wednesday 3 November.

But last week the Browsers Booker Book Group gave its verdict...

(Before I go any further it's worth acknowledging that I don't think we've ever preempted the judges' decision!)

Certainly this year we found that the books were more readable than the novels which are usually selected. In particular, 'Great Circle' (spanning 600 pages) and 'The Fortune Men' provided more conventional plotlines and attention to 'story'.

One book, 'A Passage North', proved notably 'difficult' with some sentences lasting 20 lines, some paragraphs spanning 10 pages, and no real conclusion or explanation of the events which had been introduced earlier in the novel, our readers said.

Another of the books, 'Bewilderment', was considered 'bleak', 'intense', 'claustrophobic', but imaginative, and relevant and important in addressing climate change issues, according to our readers.

'No One is Talking About This' provoked the most divided and animated responses of all the titles. Described by two of our readers as a book of two halves which was crude, full of jargon with random thoughts and ideas, our other reader declared it brilliant, using form and contemporary language and devices to illustrate the impact of social media.   

The book which achieved most positive comments from our three readers was 'The Promise' by Damon Galgut. Although it was described as an uncomfortable and unpleasant read, which required concentration and application to follow the narrative thread, it was considered an absorbing family saga with profound comments about contemporary issues concerning race in South Africa.

In a vote by our group, this was the book which was considered the likely winner, with 'The Fortune Men', written by the one British author on the shortlist,  coming a close second. We'll have to wait and see what the judges decide.

Our regular book group meeting takes place again in a week's time (scroll down for details). We'll be discussing 'An Island' by Karen Jennings. If you'd like to come along, please reply to this email as I need to have an idea of numbers.

And next week I hope to be able to let you have details of an exciting author event taking place in person in Woodbridge next month. It's been a while, so I hope that the speaker will be of interest and you'll want to come along!

Thank you for reading.

The nights are drawing in now and how this year has flown by. Time seems to have done funny things in the past 18 months. In the midst of lockdown it seemed simultaneously to stand still and to rush past.

But do we place too much store on time, and how we use it?

This week I read a fascinating book by Oliver Burkeman called 'Four Thousand Weeks' (scroll down for more details). It is based on the fact that if we live to be 80, we will have had 4,000 weeks on earth. And he asks us to consider how we're addressing that fact. Are we making the most of each moment? What does that actually mean?

While he confesses to having been a time-management junkie, obsessed with being more productive and efficient, seeking to cram ever more things into each day, in this book he describes how he now believes that approach is all wrong. It means we are serving economists, industrialists, governments by keeping busy to reach some ultimate future goal of happiness and fulfillment. Instead, he says, we need to stop, reassess and let go.

We can build our security in keeping busy, but it can distract us from appreciating the here and now. Lockdown saw us enjoying the natural environment, taking local walks, gardening and baking, appreciating family and neighbours, as perhaps never before. This book urges us to recall that experience and to be brave and liberate ourselves from the overwhelming to-do lists. And it's a very entertaining and stimulating read too.

Thank you for reading.

Last week saw the release of the new Richard Osman book (and also the announcement of the Booker Prize shortlist, but we'll talk about that next time, perhaps!).

Called 'The Man Who Died Twice', it's the sequel to his hugely successful debut novel 'The Thursday Murder Club' which was published just before lockdown last year. If you're still in the dark, Richard Osman is the very tall man who co-hosts the quiz show 'Pointless' on the BBC.

But surely you've heard something of his story? This is a celebrity who has written a very popular novel and it's received lots of attention. The book? Well, it's a murder mystery set in a retirement home and most people have really enjoyed it and that's why it's sold lots of copies. Some people, of course, don't know what the fuss is about.

Normally I might be a bit cynical about a big 'name' publishing a book, and receiving an inordinate amount of marketing support - the type of which is rarely accorded to your jobbing writer. But on this occasion, I have actually enjoyed reading both books, have found Richard Osman to be a very pleasant man who genuinely champions bookshops, and I've also discovered that people who might not normally come into a bookshop, or read a novel, have been curious enough to buy his book.

What's more, though the book is set around a murder mystery, the story is full of humour, and the characters are warm, sometimes wise, charming and engaging. And it's nice to find a book which makes you smile. While I hope we don't have too many copycat books published as a result of this success, if more people are encouraged to read, and to find enjoyment and positivity through this book and others like it, that can't be a bad thing, can it?

Thank you for reading.