Authors Electric

I’m a big fan of travel writing. There’s nothing I like better than to curl up with an intrepid individual as they scale icy mountains, trek across uncharted wastes and battle with hostile tribes. If you’ve never read him, I’d encourage you to look into the works of Eric Newby (personal favourites of mine being Love and War in the Apennines and A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush).   I myself am not a great traveller. I don’t like flying (lack of control, no leg room, hurtling through the air in a metal tube. Why would you?) and I prefer to get to know several places really well rather than going to lots of different destinations just once. I do love travelling on trains and last Saturday, I made the two-hour journey from rural East Suffolk to the throbbing depths of the capital for the 50 th Anniversary ACW Writers’ Day in Westminster. Dear readers, at no point did I whip out a set of crampons and scramble up an inhospitable slope. Nor did I have to don snowshoes and crunch my way o...

It’s not often that you’ll find me giving advice in a blog. Or indeed, anywhere. I know some stuff, but the longer I live, the more I realise that really, my sum of wisdom is as tiny as a grain of sparkling sand on a white, sun-drenched beach lapped by an azure ocean. (My goodness, you can tell I’m a writer. How about that for a poetic image?)   Anyway, today’s advice, such as it is, is this. Go to the library. As often as you can. And make sure you tell the librarians what a cracking job they’re doing. When eventually I ascend to the heavenly realms, I am reasonably sure that there will be a vast, well-stocked library somewhere about the place, with lots of cosy seating by sunny windows, good coffee, non-fattening cakes (it is heaven, after all) and perhaps some of the authors themselves ready for a nice long chat about their inspiration and their world view.   There are all kinds of libraries out there and last week I found out about one which I will probably never visit. ...