National Crime Reading Month - June 2016

I recently saw James Runcie at the Hay Festival talking about his Grantchester series of crime novels.

Runcie told how he had loosely based Sidney Chambers, the vicar and part time sleuth of the novels, on his own father, Robert Runcie (Archbishop of Canterbury 1980-1991) and the talk was peppered with fascinating family anecdotes.

The Grantchester Mysteries start in the 1950’s and will go up to the Silver Jubilee year, 1977. The fifth title of the planned series of six, “Sidney Chambers and the Dangers of Temptation” has just been published in hardback.

In the Q&A session afterwards Runcie dropped in some tantalising hints as to how the story might develop in the final novel of the series. As a big fan of the TV show starring the gorgeous James Norton as Sidney and Robson Green as Geordie, I am now inspired to read my way through the entire series starting at the beginning, where else?, with “Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death”.

More Hay Highlights

 1. The weather

It’s not often that the weather is kind to the Hay Festival but this year we could truly say we made Hay while the sun shone. It was great to see the crowds picnicking on the grass instead of running for cover. Sunglasses and sandals were the order of the day instead of umbrellas and wellies, bliss.

2. Michael Palin – Travelling to Work

Michael Palin talked about his series of diaries covering the years 1969-1998. Amongst the revelations were how Monty Python’s Flying Circus got its name, it just sounded funny and how he came to be a BBC travel presenter par excellence. Palin was very flattered when the BBC told him how much they wanted him to front their new programme, a modern day Around the World in Eighty Days, only to discover that he wasn’t their first choice, second or even third, the likes of Alan Whicker having already turned down the job.  

3. Roger McGough and LiTTLe MACHiNe

LiTTLe MACHiNe are a group of three musicians who perform famous poems set to music. They kicked off the session and then Liverpool poet, Roger McGough joined them to recite his funny and thought provoking poems with occasional backing music from the group. The performance ended with a rousing audience sing along of the old Scaffold favourite “Lily the Pink”, goodness only knows what anyone passing the tent thought was going on!

James Runcie book signing at Hay

4. James Runcie – The Grantchester Novels

This was my most surprising Hay highlight. In a fabulous session historical novelist, S J Parris talked to James Runcie about his Grantchester crime series of books. 

More of this in the next post when we celebrate National Crime Reading Month.

Hay Highlights

Ruby Wax's sell out talk based on her new book, "A Mindfulness Guide for the FRAZZLED" was my Hay Highlight on Bank Holiday Monday. With her usual outrageous, over the top, witty style she had the audience performing mindfulness exercises one moment and roaring with laughter the next. 

As well as being a comedian and TV writer, Ruby holds a Master's degree in Mindfulness based Cognitive Therapy from Oxford University, so she really knows her stuff and this came across. I came out of the tent feeling much less frazzled than when I went in.

"500 years ago no-one died of stress: we have invented this concept and now we let it rule us. Rest has become a dirty word, and our idea of satisfaction is answering the last email. We're sleepwalking through our own lives. Ruby Wax shows us how to wake up from this stupor with a scientific solution to modern problems: mindfulness."

Hay Festival 2016 (26 May - 5 June)

The 29th Hay Festival is under way with a number of significant literary anniversaries featuring prominently:

Shakespeare 400 - commemorating 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare.

Charlotte Bronte - bicentenary of her birth.

Centenary of Roald Dahl's birth.

The Hay Festival was founded around a kitchen table in 1987 and continues to attract the most exciting writers, film makers, comedians, politicians and musicians to inspire, delight and entertain.

For 10 days in May and June, Hay is full of stories, ideas, laughter and music. With loads going on for kids too, it makes a great family day out.

Reading Group members from Cwmbran and Pontypool Libraries enjoying a day out at last year's Hay Festival

For more information about the festival click on the link  

Hay Festival

Share a Story

Three great anthologies of stories and poetry to share with people of all ages.

Here's a short story I'd like to share with you.

Deja vu

Maggie knew she was dreaming. It was as though she was watching a TV programme or a film, but bizarrely she was looking through the eyes of the leading lady and the set was her sitting room. 

On her sofa sat an old woman, very sweet, a typical grandma. She was holding on her lap a very large, very old book. From this distance Maggie couldn’t make out the title, but it looked like one of those huge old family Bibles the Victorians used to keep, like the one her Grandmother, Mabel had inherited. As a child Maggie had loved to look at that Bible with all the names of Mabel's family with their dates of birth and sometimes, sadly of death. The details had been carefully written on the inside of the front cover by Mabel's father. There were a lot of names. Mabel had come from a large family of sixteen children, not all of whom had survived infancy. Suddenly the old woman looked up from the closed book and her sweet expression evaporated. She gazed menacingly at Maggie and said in a deep, hoarse voice, “I don’t like this house, I don’t like you!” 

Maggie didn’t know how to respond but before she could, the old woman thrust the book at her. Maggie took it and realised it certainly was not a Bible, quite the opposite in fact. On the cover was an embossed pentacle, the kind you saw in films about witchcraft or Satanism. Was the old woman a witch? She no longer seemed like someone’s loveable old granny. “Open the book” the woman demanded. Maggie didn’t know why, but she obeyed. Inside were black and white illustrations. As Maggie watched, the drawings started to move and come to life. She snapped the book shut but it grew hot in her hands, burning her skin. A hole began to appear along the cut edge of the pages, the paper blistered and there was a smell of burning. Maggie threw the book as far as she could into the darkest corner of the room. 

Slowly a shape, vaguely human started to materialise out of the darkness where the book had landed. As it took form and solidified Maggie realised it had the body of a man, an ancient, naked, withered old man with long lank hair and hands like claws the nails black with filth. Its expression demonic, it reached out for her and….. she woke up.

The next day Maggie was glad to get home from work. After her restless night and exhausting day she just wanted to curl up on the sofa with a glass of wine and a DVD. She kicked off her shoes and went straight to the kitchen where her two cats, Bert and Sidney were anxiously waiting to be fed. They circled around her legs, weaving in and out, demanding that she hurry up. They were soon satisfied with a plate of tuna each and she reached for the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. Wine first she decided, food later, probably a microwave meal for one. As she carried the glass to the sitting room and opened the door a voice rasped, “I don’t like this house!”

That's the end of my story but what happened next? You tell me. 

Post your ideas below.

The British Book Industry Awards 2016

It must be book awards season, with the winners of yet another competition announced at an awards ceremony on 9th May 2016.

The overall Book of the Year Award winner and winner of the Debut Fiction category was
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley.

Hurley’s Lancashire set gothic horror had previously won the Costa First Novel Award 2015.

If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney - that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Father, Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest. It was impossible to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever went near the water. No one apart from us, that is. I suppose I always knew that what happened there wouldn't stay hidden for ever, no matter how much I wanted it to.

This sounds right up my street and will shortly be joining my to read pile!

Other Category Winners were:

Children’s Book of the Year
My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons

My brother is a superhero, and I could have been one too, except that I needed to go for a wee. My name is Luke Parker, I'm 11 years old and I live in a mild-mannered part of London with my mum, dad and big brother, Zack. He wasn't always a superhero, but with a name like Zack you've got to wonder if my parents had a hunch that one day he'd end up wearing a mask and cape and saving orphans from buring buildings. I mean, come on! It's what you get in a comic when a superhero punches a supervillain. Pow! Blam! Zack!

Non-Fiction Book of the Year 
Norwegian Wood by Lars Mytting

"Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection" Henry David Thoreau.

Chopping and stacking wood is a pastime where the world makes sense once more. Because our relationship to fire is so ancient, so universal, it seems that in learning about wood, you can also learn about life.
Whether you are a seasoned woodcutter, or your passion is yet to be kindled (pun intended), Norwegian Wood is the perfect fireside read.

Fiction Book of the Year 
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015 and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2016.

When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realise, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome - but that will define his life forever.

Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016

Why not settle down with your favourite tipple, whatever that may be and read your way through this year’s shortlist for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. There are some great titles on the list, including three debut novels. 

Now in its 21st year, the award celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women throughout the world. 





Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. For Ruby Bell, Liberty was a place of devestating violence from which she fled to seedy, glamourous 1950s New York.

Years later, pulled back home, 30 year old Ruby is faced with the seething hatred of a town desperate to destroy her and Ephram must choose between loyalty to the sister who raised him and the chance for a life with the woman he has loved since he was a boy.



The children of Rosaleen Madigan return to the west coast of Ireland for a final family Christmas in the home their mother is about to sell. As the feast turns into a near painful comedy the adult children are left feeling that their childhoods are being erased, their personal history bought and sold.




One messy murder affects the lives of five misfits who exist on the fringes of Ireland's post-crash society. 

Maureen, the accidental murderer, has returned to Cork after 40 years in exile to discover that Jimmy, the son she was forced to give up years before, has grown into the most fearsome gangster in the city. In seeking atonement for the murder and a multitude of other perceived sins, she threatens to destroy everything her son has worked so hard for, but her actions risk bringing the intertwined lives of the Irish underworld into the spotlight.


Meet Veblen. She's an experienced cheerleader (mainly of her narcissistic, hypochondriac, controlling mother), an amateur translator, and a passionate defender of the anti-consumerist views of her namesake, the economist Thorstein Veblen. She's also a firm believer in the distinct possibility that the plucky grey squirrel following her around can understand everything she says.

 

 Annie McDee, alone after the disintegration of her long-term relationship and trapped in a dead-end job, is searching for a present for her unsuitable lover in a neglected second-hand shop. Within the jumble of junk and tack, a grimy painting catches her eye. Leaving the store with the picture after spending her meagre savings, she prepares an elaborate dinner for two, only to be stood up, the gift gathering dust on her mantelpiece. But every painting has a story - and if it could speak, what would it tell us? For Annie has stumbled across 'The Improbability of Love', a lost masterpiece by Antoine Watteau, one of the most influential French painters of the 18th century

When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. 

Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realise, is Jude who serves as the centre of their gravity. By midlife he is a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome - but that will define his life forever.

The winner will be announced 8 June 2016.