(Warning: Contains spoilers)

Though I was aware of the frenzy around the publication of Bonnie Garmus’ breakout novel, and even bought a copy fairly early on, I was painfully slow in getting around to actually reading it. While that was time wasted that I could have spent fawning over what is now a firm ...

Writers are often told, “write what you know”. Generally, this is good advice and meant encouragingly, as in, record your unique human experience so that others can share in and learn from it.

However, looked at from the opposite perspective, it could be taken as an enforced limitation, translating ...

People tend to think I’m joking when I cite Taylor Swift alongside J.R.R. Tolkien, Jodi Picoult and Aaron Sorkin as one of my literary influences, but I can assure you, I am not. Let me tell you why.

Like most “Swifties”, I can claim a fantasy best-friendship with her since the early 2000’s and her music ...

I panicked a bit when I first started this one. There were so many characters, they had so many children, and everyone had the same surname! I spent the disastrous birthday dinner of the opening scenes trying to work out who was married to whom, rather than concentrating on anything they were saying to one ...

‘You should’ve tried harder in school, shouldn’t you?’

The white-haired, middle-aged man leaned out of his van window to make sure I’d heard him. Apparently surprised by my lack of response - I was staring incredulous, trying to work out whether I’d heard him right – he then added; ‘or perhaps you did ...