Ah – this was a fun coincidence. I was starting a post about my books when this article by Jacob Brogan appeared in The Washington Post. He writes about Joseph Epstein, an eminent American literary critic, who has written a book that asks if we need novels. Well – I need novels – good ones of course – and I […]
Four children alone in the Amazon Rain forest
There was good news. Four children had survived a plane crash and 40 days wandering in the Amazon jungle.They were children who had knowledge and experience of nature but they were weak and hungry when they were found. This is a profound lesson for all humans. We are human animals. We are part of nature and our survival depends on […]
A bad Mother and an African village
Victims The media are currently running stories about victims of poor parenting. Everyone has had mothers and fathers and was parented somehow by somebody. We know ourselves through understanding our families and parents. Unquestionably there are children who are victims and who have suffered, but there are also those who survive enormous difficulties and who still manage to forgive and […]
A migrant story
This is a story about doors and wages and a migrant. It ends with a death. A migrant is a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions. Who has never or not done that? Long ago at the start of things It was 1973. Mike and I had been one […]
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah
New Year in another country On New Year’s Day we fled from France across the snow-covered Pyrenees pursued by stormy winds and heavy rain. There we wandered along empty twisting roads among ruined and isolated stone villages and ancient monasteries in the brutal mountains of Spanish Aragon. In our hotel room the television showed no news and told no stories […]