News

After all that has been happening nationally and internationally in the past week, perhaps we should turn our thoughts instead to...the weather!?

Yesterday's warm, bright sunshine certainly lifted my spirits and the days are getting noticeably longer now too. It's a welcome reminder that winter will pass.

In my reading this week, I was pleased to find books which offered hope and promise.

Women writing in '100 voices' shared their experiences of bringing about change in their lives, and it urged me to think about introducing small positive actions in my life - even writing letters more regularly to friends who enjoy receiving a personal message in the post.

And 'The Comet' is a beautiful picture book for young readers who might be experiencing an upheaval, giving them solace and the promise of a positive way forward.

There will be an opportunity to share our reading treasures tomorrow, when it's our book group meeting in Woodbridge.

We will be keeping to our existing measures regarding ventilation, distancing and masks, and I hope that you will feel comfortable to come along to discuss 'Mayflies' by Andrew O'Hagan.

I need to ensure we have everything in place ahead of the meeting so would be grateful if you would reply to this email by 10am tomorrow at the latest to let me know if you are joining us, and I'll send you all the details.

Thank you for reading!

When I heard that Adam Kay's memoir 'This is Going to Hurt' was being dramatised for television, I wondered how it could be done.

A hugely popular book, topping the charts for many weeks, it's clearly had a wide appeal but its wry and knowing observations on the life of a junior doctor would not be easily translated to the screen, I thought. And surely it would then undermine what was achieved so well in print - to entertain and enlighten, shock and inspire simultaneously.

Although I still feel that I prefer the book, the seven part series that is currently showing on BBC One is well done. But it is a difficult watch.

There is still some humour, and the acting is excellent - we really feel we know these characters - but it is a bleak presentation of our hospitals and of the overwhelming pressure bearing down on the people we call on for life and death decisions.

Although Adam Kay is presented as an unattractive individual in this drama (perhaps more so than in his books), we still see the subtle but distinct change in him when he needs to step up to the plate and save a life. What's more, every member of the team comes together for this common goal. There can be no point scoring when a life is at risk.

Reading the Covid diary of the ICU nurse, Anthea Allen, this week (Life, Death and Biscuits), I was moved to read of both her pride and delight in her team and in the nursing profession as a whole, and also how everyone implicitly knew their role, their contribution in any task or crisis. It is humbling and uplifting to read. When our society today continues to value individual goals and achievements, it is worth remembering how much good we can do when we work together.

Thank you for reading!

This week I went to see the film 'Belfast', written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, which has been nominated for seven Oscars - and well deserved in my opinion!

I found it to be a very affecting film. It's important not to forget the terrifying ordeals experienced by so many people through the Troubles, particularly as communities throughout the world are living through such horrors today. 

There was also, though, a powerful sense of community with the bonds of family, friends and neighbours presented with humour and sensitivity. And the artistry of the production, the camera shots, the scene setting, the acting, clothes and music, all made for this to be an uplifting and memorable mix of joy, hope, horror and sadness. What's more the story was told from the perspective of a child, inspired by the nine-year-old Kenneth Branagh. This made it even more poignant and telling as he and his friends sought to make sense of the bewildering and frightening actions of the adults they had grown up trusting.

Another story of childhood was released last week. Justin Webb, the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme has published a memoir called 'The Gift of a Radio'. In this very entertaining and nostalgic book he nevertheless acknowledges that he didn't have a happy time growing up. Indeed his experiences are at times quite unsettling to read. But again he writes with a sensitivity and humour, and the lesson he has learned, which he shares with the reader, is that we are all multi-faceted and we need to treat each other with kindness, understanding and compassion. He hopes, he says, that we can nurture “our ability to look at ourselves and others without condemnation".

And I was interested to read the latest children's book by the presenter and writer Danny Wallace. Called 'The Luckiest Kid in the World', it explores how commercialism today relies on finding the common denominator, the thing which everyone wants. In pursuing this, though, we all risk losing what is special, unusual or creative, and "no one thinks differently or tries different things or is ever truly excited about anything ever again". And it is through the experiences of Joe Smith, "an average kid", that the reader is reassured that "however ordinary we are, we are each of us so very special".

Thank you for reading!

The past couple of years have cemented the value of books in our modern society.

Sales of both print and e-books have grown hugely as we've been offered an abundance of quality writing on all sorts of subjects. Books have enabled us to escape from our current circumstances either as a diversion from the dire news stories, or as stimulation from the monotony of a lockdown.

This week I've come across a couple of conversations exploring what we choose to read and what it delivers to us.

In the Guardian recently there was an editorial about the uncanny nack of novelists to 'predict' the future. There are the often quoted HG Wells and George Orwell, of course, but in more recent times there have been a number of novelists who delivered plots centred on a pandemic just before it became a reality.

These tales arise, Margaret Atwood claims, because writers ask the right questions and investigate 'what would happen if...'

"This is one of the great things fiction can do," the article continues, "pay a particular kind of attention. It is a kind of eavesdropping, and looking under the surface of things...Though novelists are not seers, we would do well not to underestimate their grasp on what is to come."

Meanwhile on BBC Radio 4 the wonderful author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce (who I was delighted to interview last year) delivered a brilliant programme about the value of children's books. Called Wonderlands, he argues that comfort reading is essential reading - these stories create our 'interior happy places', they build resilience, all of which lasts far beyond our childhood.

Keep reading!

In the 14 years we've been gathering as the Browsers Book Group, the first meeting of the year has always been popular, and it's been particularly encouraging to see that this is once more the case. The interest has been so great, in fact, that there's only room for a couple more to join us!

If you had hoped to come along please let me know before 10am tomorrow and I'll send you the details of this month's meeting. I'm afraid only those people who have registered with me by email will be allowed entry due to the high numbers and the restrictions in our current situation. But if you're unlucky this time, there's always next month! I'll have details of February's title next week and if you'd like to look back on all the past titles we've discussed click here.

Of course if we were still meeting on Zoom we wouldn't have this restriction on numbers! There are pros and cons with everything aren't there?!

Although online meetings were very different from chatting in person, everyone who took part agreed that we got to know each other a little better through the common experience of lockdown - and with our names clearly printed underneath our faces!

Now that we're meeting in person again, I thought perhaps we might build on this by sharing something of ourselves through our reading experience. This is what I've called Read Me Like a Book.

You may have seen a similar format in the Guardian each Saturday as The Books That Made Me, or as an item on the BBC2 book club programme Between the Covers. We'll see how much we can find out about each other when we answer questions such as 'my earliest reading memory', for example, or 'the last book that made me laugh', 'the book I'll never give away', or 'the book I read every year'. What would your answers say about you?

Thank you for reading.