Authors Electric

 I have never been a particular Beatles fan. I like their music but  I am too young to have been aware of them in their heyday and too old to have rediscovered them as something extraordinary and inspirational as a younger generation have done. I did however watch 'Get Back' the eight hour documentary that showed them rehearsing for what became their final and very brief live concert on the roof of the 'Apple' building.      It was at once blindingly dull and totally gripping: watching creative people procrastinate, muck about, fail to organise themselves or make any real decisions was like watching my own head in action or rather inaction. Then there were the strange moments when mucking about suddenly transformed into the creation of something. Watching Paul McCartney noodling around on guitar and producing 'Get Back' was electrifying, like watching a familiar sculpture being chiselled into being from raw concrete.    It got me thinking about creati...

Ben Fox is a young tech-entrepreneur and book lover, who has made enough money to invest heavily in a passion project – pretty much a definition of “living the dream”, I would say. Because he has always enjoyed the experience of browsing in bookshops, he decided there was a need for something on-line which would offer the same experience.   When he delved a little further into the way the publishing industry worked, he was shocked, as are most business people, by the difficulties that face authors and publishers when it comes to marketing. We all know exactly what he means, and we also all know that the best sort of recommendations are carried via word-of-mouth.   After a great deal of thought he has come up with a site where authors recommend the five best books within their particular areas of expertise. Imagine, for instance, that you wanted to find a good book on climate change and you could ask David Attenborough for five recommendations, or Barak Obama for five good book...

    Image credit:   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frost_patterns_2.jpg When I was young our house was freezing in winter -- literally. There used to be ice on the inside of the windows. This was because we lived in a council house built in 1954 which, although well appointed for its time, had no insulation, no central heating and only single-glazed windows. In winter, the heating was a fire in the living-room which didn't even heat that room very well. (The part of you nearest the fire was roasted; the part of you furthest away was cold.) There was a fire-grate in the front-room, but it was hardly ever used. The upstairs rooms had no heating and the cold up there could be -- often was -- bitter . We lived, as I still do, on top of the Rowley Hills. My Dad often observed that there was no higher point between us and the Urals and the east wind blew to us straight from Siberia. Going straight through us, of course, not bothering to go round. But Jack Frost use...

  If you are a fan of Friends you might remember Phoebe uttering those memorable words in a certain Christmas episode of the show. It caused a laugh. As did much of what came out of the hapless Phoebe’s mouth to be honest. And it is still watched as a meme on YouTube – the clip I found lasts all of 4 seconds and has had 8.1K views. Yes, today is the day before the day before the big event. What does that mean to you? Perhaps you are still frantically last minute shopping, especially food and drink, maybe even presents. Perhaps it is your last day of work before the holidays begin. Perhaps, like me it is a day to consolidate. How far have I got with the wrapping? Have I got enough sprouts? What needs to go on my 'to do' list for Christmas Eve? Is the cake iced, the pastry defrosting, the cookies made? Or perhaps you are just ignoring the fact that it is all kicking off the day after tomorrow, and burying yourself in a Christmas movie marathon, the mulled wine at hand. I wonde...

  Footprints in the Snow...  As a contrast to Christmas, but in the spirit of wintery things, I offer you a taster from one of my books...*  Extracted from The LabyrinthYear, a novel by Mari Howard...   (Main characters: Max & Jenny, who are visiting Max's family for Hogmanay; Daze, Jenny's step-sister, an artist: & David, Director of a retreat house...)       New Year’s Eve: (Jenny describes...) ...Today, we’ll move over to the Manse: the Mullins siblings are already there. We’ve been lying low, so that the old Hogmanay custom can ‘surprise’ Alisdair. It’s as if the Mullins family express some undiscovered gene for secretiveness. Ironic, since it’s me who’s keeping a secret from them this time. Anyhow, twenty to midnight, we’re all here, wrapped warmly, packed and ready to go.   Snow has been falling all afternoon. Now, the moon’s out, and stars sprinkle the sky. ‘Your vehicle or mine?’ Euan asks. ‘Ours: we’ve the seats for the bairns,’ s...

  The night is long and full of terrors (Game of Thrones fans, don't worry... we are not burning anyone here today). The day is short, especially if like me you have yet to brave the potentially plague-infested shops to do your Christmas shopping. But, never fear, this pan(dem)ic year is almost done... When unicorns rise In the wild winter wood Now shall we see The truth in their words Ever clearer as the sun Restores light to the earth. * Katherine Roberts writes fantasy and historical fiction for young readers. It's probably too late to order a paperback for Christmas, but all of her books are also available in digital format for both Kindle and epub. www.katherineroberts.co.uk

When I was a grotty teenager, we moved from our council house to a dilapidated cottage in a couple of acres of its own grounds, on the edge of Ashdown Forest. It was in a hollow, down a quarter-of-a-mile of unmade road across a golf course (on Common Land, but whoever managed to swing it to put a golf course on it is lost in the mists of time). It had typical Sussex tile hanging on the outside, and oak panelling in the downstairs rooms, which we thought incredibly grand, although it was just thin ply. It had no electricity or gas, an outside lav and only two bedrooms, so until Dad built an extension, Mum and I had one room and Dad and my brothers the other – christened the Hennery and the Mennery. Much later, I set a series of stories for children in an imagined version of the place, weaving Sussex legends and folklore into them. They were called The Hob and Miss Minkin, the Hob being a household spirit who lived under the hearthstone and was invisible to the family. Such spirits wer...