News

There's little to please or delight us from the news these days. Even the satirical radio and tv programmes struggle with their wry observations when we're bombarded with tragic and troubling events on every side. Their response, then, has been to look closer to home with the smaller stories, raising smiles and laughter from the more trivial and inconsequential which are nonetheless often bizarre and bewildering.

We need to laugh after all. We know that humour helps diffuse tension and lift our mood, just like spending time outdoors appreciating our natural environment, listening to music or looking at beautiful art. 

So as we approach winter, there are a couple of events coming up at The Riverside which I hope will lift our spirits for the short days and dark nights! 

In addition to meeting the fabulous printmaker Angela Harding in December and finding out about her travels throughout Britain exploring the landscape and viewing birds and wildlife to inspire her glorious prints and watercolours, I'm pleased to announce another event a couple of weeks earlier.

On Sunday 17 November at 6pm we will be joined by the much-loved cartoonist Matt who will be telling us how he finds something for us to laugh about each day.

Whether or not you read the 'Daily Telegraph', I'm sure you're familiar with the work of Matt Pritchett who has been contributing a cartoon on the front page of the paper for more than 30 years (I have heard of some people who pick up the newspaper to take a look at that day's Matt cartoon and then put it down and buy a rival news sheet!).

I had the privilege of meeting Matt at his home on the border with Norfolk a couple of years ago and found him brilliant company. You can read my interview here. He's very entertaining and positive, and genuinely has a twinkle in his eye. I hope you'll come along and meet him. We'll be showing some of his cartoons from the past year on the big screen, and you'll go away with your own copy of his 'Best of Matt' annual for 2024. This event will be a real tonic, I'm sure, and I look forward to seeing you there!

Thank you for reading.

As the nights are drawing in and we are beginning to feel the change of season, it feels a good time to make our reading a sociable occasion, meeting together for a book group discussion.

Last week we gathered in Framlingham to talk about 'Birnam Wood' by Eleanor Catton. It was a lively discussion and we had all enjoyed this page-turner to keep us busy over the summer, but the author didn't deliver everything we were hoping for, it seems. And there was a strong concensus of opinion on this book. Have you read it? What did you think?

A week tomorrow we'll be meeting again in Woodbridge to talk about our summer read which was 'In Memoriam' by Alice Winn. And I'm sure we'll have something to say about the Booker shortlist announcement too. If you are hoping to come along to this meeting, please let me know by replying to this email so that I know how many of us will be there. 

It's so lovely to meet in person to talk about books but I was interested to see that Cambridge University Library has an online book group discussion which launched this month. Called The Really Popular Book Club it presents familiar titles for discussion and invites an expert (who isn't the author) to share their perspective on the themes of the novel. In October the book will be 'Mr Loverman' by Bernadine Evaristo, and other titles include 'The Poisonwood Bible' and 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. Take a look at the website for the list of books, and the experts who will be attending. It's an interesting idea, I think. 

Thank you for reading.

Ticketing has been a rather contentious issue this week.

I don't know whether you've been planning on attending an Oasis concert next year but it seems that many fans have spent hours online or on the phone queuing for their access to this momentous event, only to discover that the price has, in some cases, tripled while they've been waiting to make their purchase.

Dynamic pricing, as this practice is called, is when businesses adjust their prices flexibly based on current market conditions. Airlines, hotels and taxi companies all use this model.

This week, the writer William Nicholson shared his personal experience of the practice when a hotel reservation in Berlin proved surprisingly expensive. He had booked his room months ago but, on checking in, was told a conference had since come to town. Accommodation was now at a premium so the hotels had responded by raising their prices. Nicholson found that he was being charged three times the price he had thought he had agreed.

Despite all this seeming very unfair, consumers do benefit from the practice through cut-price air fares and cheaper midweek hotel stays, the argument goes. Businesses just have to take care they don't push it too far.

So I'm pleased to say that we have a much better arrangement for my author events in Woodbridge! 

It's true the printmaker Angela Harding, while wonderful and well worth meeting, is not in the same league as Oasis, but there are two price points for her visit to The Riverside in a few weeks' time.

There is an 'early bird' price where a discounted ticket is available if you can make your booking right away. Knowing that I have an audience for Angela and that you have the date in the diary is such a help to me in organising the event

But even the regular price is a bargain - Angela's new book is priced at £25, but if you come along to hear her at The Riverside, you will have your entry to the event, plus the book to take home, all for the same price £25.

All the details for this event are listed below so please do scroll down and follow the link to The Riverside to reserve your place.

However please note the date!

Angela is now coming a couple of weeks' later than the date I indicated last week. She will be speaking on the afternoon of Sunday 1 December.

If you have ever purchased one of Angela's stunning advent calendars, this seems the perfect date. We'll be opening the first door of the calendar and Angela is sure to get us in the mood for Christmas (I know, it does seem far too early to be speaking about Christmas, particularly when we're having a lovely sunny spell, and that's why I'll be so grateful if you are able to book your tickets now!)

Thank you for reading.

On Monday evening we held our Booker Book Group discussion. We've been running this for a number of years now, and on each occasion I've wondered how we'd all feel about investing our time and the price of a hardback to investigate the longlist of 13 titles chosen by the Booker judges.

We've not really had a great opinion of the judges' selection in the past. Novels which make the grade for Booker have always seemed to have focused on grim, bleak subject matter in a challenging format!

However this year we had our biggest interest for the meeting yet - even before the longlist was released. And it proved an appealing and accessible collection of novels.

There were 24 people signed up for our meeting, so almost all of the books were allocated two readers to give us their evaluation ('Enlightenment', 'My Friends' and 'Playground' had only one reader each and for 'Creation Lake' we had to rely on a 'Guardian' review as the book wasn't published before our meeting).

By having more than one presentation for each book, we had a lot to get through in our time and it was fascinating to find that many of the novels had opposing viewpoints from our readers. It meant that discerning our favourites from the list was more difficult as we heard such a clear explanation of differing opinions for each title.

There were a couple of exceptions - four members of the group had read 'Orbital' and all enjoyed the title, recommending it highly for its subject matter and originality but with the caveat that it had no plot and 'wasn't really a novel'! And our two readers for 'Held' by Anne Michaels agreed that the prose, though beautiful at times, was largely impenetrable and the story disjointed, so neither of them recommended it. 

After hearing all the reviews, we drew up our shortlist of the six titles which we felt should be considered for the overall prize. We selected the following:

'James' by Percival Everett
'Orbital' by Samantha Harvey
'My Friends' by Hisham Matar
'Wandering Stars' by Tommy Orange
'Playground' by Richard Powers
'The Safekeep' by Yael van der Wouden

Will the judges agree? They might choose 'Enlightenment' by Sarah Perry instead of 'The Safekeep' perhaps, we felt.

And the overall winner? 'Orbital' and 'James' both had the most supporters wishing it to triumph, but any one from our shortlist would be a worthy winner, we felt. It will be interesting to hear the judges' announcement on Monday 16 September to find out whether or not we're in agreement with their assessment.

Thank you for reading.

Today is officially the first day of autumn (meteorologically speaking).

And next week the schools go back.

And that can feel as though we're set for a rapid descent into the end of the year...

But the new term also signals a fresh start. It's a time to get down to business again after the summer break (whether or not we got away).

It's an opportunity to think of goals, ambitions and resolutions but with less pressure than January's New Year ritual.

And it's also a time, for me, to have a bit of a purge, a 'spring' clean in order to refocus on what is important.

However, in ransacking the wardrobe and the attic, I've been confronted with memories so I'm finding myself looking backwards instead of forwards! 

This has coincided with some research I've been doing for a magazine article - about typewriters.

When I was at journalism college we were still using portable typewriters, but it wasn't long before they became completely redundant and cast aside. 

Now, in the past 10 years, they have had a resurgence and particularly with journalists, scriptwriters and novelists who are eager to steer away from the distractions of websites, emails, and the all-too-easy delete button of computers. It seems many of them are finding their creativity is best channelled through using the manual typewriter, a machine invented 200 years ago.

For all the speed and efficiency of technology, there are some things that cannot be replicated - we prefer holding a book and turning its pages with our fingers; we want to take a record out of its sleeve and place it on a turntable; and we like to hear the metal keys of a mechanical machine pounding onto the page.

I wonder which of the authors in this year's Booker longlist use a typewriter? Perhaps we'll find out in tomorrow night's discussion. I'll let you know!

Thank you for reading.