Authors Electric

Nuts and Bolts by Roma Agrawal  I could say this book is 'interesting', 'fascinating', 'absorbing'... It is all of those things. It's also an absolute delight.  I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and it's not only taught me a lot, but also made me think a lot-- Oh, about history, and the gob-smacking ingenuity of all people, everywhere, at all times. How, from the Stone-Age (and before), they've observed, applied, invented... I mean, how did anyone come up with the idea of melting metal out of rocks? Or of using the power contained in a bendy branch to make a bow and arrow? If I think about it for too long at a time, it makes me dizzy. The author, Roma Agrawal, studied engineering at Imperial College, London, and physics at Oxford. She worked on the Shard. So, she knows what she's talking about. And her love for her subject is evident in every word. The subtitle is 'How Tiny Inventions Make Our World Work' and her first chapter is on...

Recently I've had some exciting news about my Young Adult novel, FOR MARITSA WITH LOVE, which was first published by Simon & Schuster in 2001, but which went out of print because it didn't make the mega-bucks required by the USA. Although David and I re-published quite a number of my out of print children's books as ebooks, I held back on MARITSA. It had attracted film offers, including one significant one, but film offers have a nasty tendency to fizzle out, usually from lack of funding. I still do have a company expressing interest, so it might still happen. Now an enterprising new publisher is proposing to take it on, both as an ebook and print on demand, and since I know its owner and like the way she's going, I think I may run with it - but not without my agent, the lovely Sophie Hicks, on board. Mega-bucks are irrelevant (although - who knows? - they might yet happen). We just want this book read. Author, and friend, Frances Thomas also wants her work...