The independent on Sunday Cynics were poised to dismiss Daniel Mason’s The Piano Tuner as yet another case of marketable youth triumphing over content and culture before the novel was published in 2003. But, when it appeared, the barbed pens of critics were blunted. Mason’s beguiling odyssey, in which a
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Belgravia magazine Betty Boothroyd, Baroness Boothroyd of Sandwell, is no stranger to history. In 1992 she became the first woman in 700 years to be elected Speaker of the House of Commons. Now the Belgravia resident is looking to make another kind of mark on history: a monument to the
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Via a circuitous route the book was spotted by literary agent Mark ‘Stan’ Stanton. “Six months after sending him my manuscript I got a call. He thought there might be something in it,” he recall, and admits the call was “the best of my life”.
New Books Magazine Readers matter to Helen Dunmore. The fifty-something poet, novelist and children’s author believes they are essential to the creative process: without them the writer’s work ceases to exist. “It is to do with igniting two imaginations,” she explains. “It is to do with what the writer puts
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Orion Books Next time you see the tax ad with Adam Hart-Davis suspended from a tall building, take pity on him. “I’m terrified of heights,” admits the What The Romans Did For Us front man. “When I was filming for the Inland Revenue, they asked me to abseil down a
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Orion Website Rob Grant has a habit of stumbling on great ideas that turn into winning creations. His most famous creation, the television series Red Dwarf, co-written with long-time writing partner Doug Naylor, started as a sketch for a radio show. His hilarious last novel Incompetence, which pokes fun at
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Sarah Waters has reason to look tired: 2006 has been a rollercoaster year for the Welsh writer. The Night Watch was published to critical acclaim, short-listed for the Orange and the Man Booker, for which it was the bookies favourite, and fell at the post both times. “Always the bridesmaid?” I ask, half joking. She laughs. “I was thinking that. Considering how much of a winner you feel when you get on the shortlist, you do feel like an absolute loser when you don’t win. It’s dreadful isn’t it?” she answers.
The Booker was an ordeal, the writer admits. “The cameras [at the Booker] make it dreadful. I have enjoyed the Orange parties but the Booker is so formal. Everybody is in bloody dinner suits or whatever. It just feels a lot grimmer.”
“We’ve made certain subjects that affect women our speciality,” Annie explains. “We talked about the things that affect us, obviously relationships, children, holidays, and we realised that we’ve always had a bit of a joke about Christmas.”
Independent on Sunday Registered blind for four years, the creator of Adrian Mole has written a sequel to ‘The Queen and I’, a wry royal saga. I believe people do not mature very much. I’m still waiting to properly mature. I believe that you can live without a mobile phone
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“Rebus and Siobhan will never jump into bed together,” the 46-year old writer says emphatically, squirming like a schoolboy told his parents have sex. “Plenty of readers want it to happen, and it just ain’t gonna happen.”
