The weight of the hammer is satisfying.
‘Help me with the fence,’ Mother had said. ‘Get the big hammer in the shed.’
Such a heavy lump of metal, smelted and beaten into shape. The muddy black colour of dirty fingernails. Its neat edges are blunt with use.
We’d just got back from the long drive to the hospital. Our bodies stiff from sitting. Our voices cracking through lack of use. There would only be another hour or so of sunlight.
The feel of the wooden handle flimsy in comparison, smooth with the faintest touch of roughened splinter where frequent handling has worn away the varnish. All its weight is in the rectangular block.
He was dying, that was for sure. We’d shouted over his bed. ‘Are these the feeding tubes?’ ‘How the hell should I fucking know?’ The monitors beeping out crazy spikes in primary colours. The occasional sound of an alarm that brought in nurses who adjusted syringes of drugs that fed into the complex machinery of wires piping into his body.
It smells of honest labour: sweat and iron. A slow tool too human against the green of the field.
His breathing was regular, aided by a machine that covered half his face and took away the juddered, phlegmy gasps of the days before.
I know what it would feel like to wield the hammer, to lift the end above my eyeline, the extra heft gravity would add to the blow as metal meets hair, skin, fat, bone. The dull, wet thud it would make.
‘I’ll reposition the posts. Hammer them in for me while I sort the wire.’
It was probably the last time I'd see him alive. I held his swollen hand, trying to rub away the edema, thinking all the things I wanted to say, knowing there was no need to say them aloud, but wishing I could be alone with him anyway. My father.
The metal fence posts are rusty. Their yellow paint flaking away into the grass. It feels good to knock them deeper into the earth, knowing how much damage the hammer could do. It is all so easy that my sweat blooms not from exertion but through the heat of this dreadful thought. Clank, thud, bang, each post is fixed in place.
I’d had to beg her to take me there one more time before my flight. I couldn’t stay any longer and the hospital was too far for me to get to without a car. She was planning to see him after my plane had left the runway. Taking in the hospital after dropping me off. She didn’t see the point in our visits. He was no longer giving any signs of recognising our presence. All that way to stand over an unconscious android, waiting. This wasn’t my burden, but hers. And she could control when I went, how long I stayed, who stayed with me.
I want so badly to knock her down. To make her listen. I can feel my knees shaking, my fingers twitching with nervous energy. Bile rises up my throat. Any moment now and my body will do what my mind won’t allow.
‘I’d like 5 minutes alone with him,’ she’d said. Of course I left. I let her have that 5 minutes I so badly wanted. She could see him tomorrow, but I would be gone. Why couldn’t I ask for those 5 minutes for myself? But I breathed and I told myself there was nothing amiss between my father and me, what was 5 minutes in a lifetime?
The tears are stinging the corners of my eyes. It just feels so nice to hold the hammer, so stupid of her to suggest I get it.
I’d cried in the hospital toilets. Fat, ugly tears shouted out in silent screams I flushed away when I heard her come in. We drove home in silence. I was too angry to speak. Especially when she said, ‘None of you think about what I feel.’
‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘That’ll do the horses for another week or so. I’ll put them out.’
I watch her walk towards the stables.
‘You can put the hammer and extra wire away,’ she says.
I nod and tread slow heavy steps to the shed, the weight of the hammer making my fingers tingle.
==============================================================================
Rebekah is a prize-winning writer, editor and creative writing teacher. Her novel Home, about a corrupt care home, was published in 2015 and Glitches, her short story chapbook, is published by Acorn Books.
Rebekah teaches on the year long Novel Studio course at City University and runs the City Short Courses Creative Writing Showcase, City Writes. Passionate about literature, Rebekah writes a blog reviewing a different novel every week and occasionally interviews authors for her Author QH. She is currently working on her second novel.
See www.lattin-rawstrone.com and also links to some of her reviews below:
The Medici Mirror by Melissa Bailey
Wounding by Heidi James
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Someone once told me, "It's not what a person is like that matters but what they like that matters."
Since 1995 I've written a list of every book I've read.
In case you're wondering what I'm like/what I like, here's a digital version of that list:
(click on the highlighted ones to read some reviews.
*UF denotes unfinished
Books in 2025
The Ministry of Time - Kalianne Bradley
Still Beating - Jennifer Hartmann
Girls - Kirsty Capes
Young Jane Young - Gabrielle Zevin
Ex Wife - Ursula Parrott
Swimmer - Bill Broady
Playground - Richard Powers
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards (still reading)
Karma - Boy George (audio)
Breaking Waves - Emma Simpson
Caledonian Road - Andrew O’Hagan (audio)
Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
Books in 2024
Baumgartner - Paul Auster
The Bee Sting - Paul Murray
Western Lane - Chetna Maroo
Milk Teeth - Jessica Andrews
Mad Honey - Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
Come and Get It - Kiley Reid
Clear - Carys Davis
The Jewish Joke - Devorah Baum
My Back Pages - Richard Charkin (Audio)
The Curious History of Dating - Nichi Hodgson (Audio)
No One Belongs Here More than You - Miranda July
My Family and Other Rockstars - Tiffany Murray
Anoint My Head - Andy McCleod (Audio)
Long Island Compromise - Taffy Brodesser-Akner
10 Poems About Walking - Introduced and Edited by Sasha Dugdale
Okay Then That's Great - Susannah Wise
Escape from Pardes Hanna - Justine Solomons (1st Draft)
Strange Weather for Tokyo - Hiromi Kawakami
Orbital - Samantha Harvey
Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man - Bill Clegg
Why I Write - George Orwell (uf)
My Family: A Memoir - David Baddiel
Books in 2023
Why We Swim - Bonnie Tsau
Turning:Lessons from Swimming Berlin's Lakes - Jessica J Lee
Bloodbath Nation - Paul Auster and Spencer Ostrander
Original Sins - Matt Rowland-Hill
Crying in H Mart - Michelle Zauner
What the Tide Brings Back - Rob Starr
Waterlog - Roger Deakin (audio)
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
Standard Deviation - Katherine Heiny
Mother - Hannah Begbie
Standard Deviation - Katherine Heiney
Pondlife - Al Alvarez
Good Girls - Hadley Freeman
Sea of Tranquility - Emily St Mandel
Everyone is Still Alive - Cathy Rentzenbrink
Homesick Why I Live in a Shed - Catherine Davies
Yellowface - R F Kuang
Romantic Comedy - Curtis Sittinfeld
Undermajordomo - Patrick DeWitt
A Waiter in Paris - Edward Chisholm
The Chronology of Water - Lidia Yaknavitch
Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingslover
You Be Mother - Meg Mason
The Guest - Emma Cline
A Town Called Solace - Mary Lawson
Trust - Hernan Diaz
The Idiot - Elif Batuman (uf)
Young Mungo - Douglas Stuart
Tresspasses - Louise Kennedy
Horse - Geraldine Brookes
Hello Beautiful - Ann Napolitano
The Heath - Hunter Davies
Ruth and Pen - Emilie Pine
Little Monsters - Adrienne Brodeur
Shimmr Don't Shake - Nadim Sadek
The Coming Wave - Mustafa Suleyman Michael Bhaskar
Grown Ups - Marian Keynes
Good Material - Dolly Alderton
The Boy on the Beach - Lindsey Swan and Sylvia Hodder (not yet published)
The Great Circle - Maggie Shipsted
Little Red Dolls - Robert Zagar
Books in 2022
The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
4000 Weeks - Oliver Burkeman (audio)
Beefy's Burden - Paul Blaney
What I Talk About When I Talk about Running - Haruki Murakami
Ten Men.- Kitty Ruskin
13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl - Mona Awad
The Blind Man of Hoy (uf) - Rod Svell
Wintering - Katherine May (audio)
Delicacy - A Memoir About Cake and Death -Katy Wix
Sensitive - Hannah Jane Walker
Still Life - Sarah Winman
French Braid - Anne Tyler
Sea State - Tabitha Lasley
Things I Didn't Throw Out - Marcin Witcha
Trickle Down - Marian Allsop
The Earl of Petticoat Lane - Andrew Miller
Magpie - Elizabeth Day
Invicible Summer - Alice Adams
Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Gamus
The Life Inside - Andy West
Green Lights - Matthew McConaughey (audio)
Paper Palace - Miranda Cawley
A Syllable in Time - Melissa Gray
We May Never Say Goodbye - Asil Thywaite
The Trees Percival Everett
Books in 2021
Leap In - Alexandra Heminsley (audio)
Shoe Dog - Phil Knight (audio)
On Chapel Sands - Laura Cummings
Insomnia Diaries - Miranda Levy
Jews Don't Count - David Baddiel
The Future of Stuff - Vinay Gupta
The Artists Way - Julia Cameron
Coming In - Justin Gibbons
Love Nina - Nina Stibbe (audio)
This is Going to Hurt - Adam Kay
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me - Bess Kalb
Sex Robots and Vegan Meat - Jenny Kleeman
Heartburn - Nora Ephron
Mrs Death Misses Death - Selena Godden
Happiness - Jack Underwood
This Is Where We Live - Kate Hardie
Beautiful World Where Are You? - Sally Rooney
The Night Always Comes - Willy Vlautin
Jailbait - Kathy Evans
The Island of Sea Women - Lisa See
The Fortune Men - Nadifa Mohammed
Flash Count Diaries - Darcey Steinke
Animal - Lisa Taddeo
Open Water - Caleb Nelson (uf)
Dear Tosh - Ninette Hartley
EYE Marty - Marty Feldman
Swimmoir - Justine Solomons
Sorrow and Bliss - Meg Mason
Swimming Lessons - Leanne Shapton
Postcards from the Edge - Carrie Fisher
Books in 202
Stop at Nothing - Tammy Cohen
Josie's Doorways - Rachel Mann (unpublished)
West - Carys Davies
Nikel Boys - Colsen Whitehead (Audio)
How To Kill Your Mother - Jeremy Austin (unpublished)
The Salt Path - Raynor Winn
Adults - Emma Jane Unsworth
Mazel Tov - JS Margot
How to Stop Time - Matt Haig (audio
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free - Andrew Miller
No Good Brother - Tyler Keevil
The Dutch House - Ann Patchett (audio)
Very Nice - Mary Dermansky
My Salinger Year - Joanna Rakoff
The Five - Hallie Rubenhold (audio)
In At The Deep End - Kate Davies
Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid
I Feel Bad About My Neck - Nora Ephron
Bitter - Francesca Jakobi
The Switch - Beth O'Leary
The Discomfort of Evening - Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
Lowborn - Kerry Hudson
Nothing to See - Kevin Wilson
Red at the Bone - Jacqueline Wilson
Why We Eat (Too Much) - Andrew Jenkinson
An American Marriage - Tayari Jones
Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh
Nidbranch - Irenosen Okojie
Peace Talks - Tim Finch
The Mothers - Brit Bennett
The House of Journalists - Tim Finch
Coming Undone - Terri White
Bel Canto - Ann Patchet
The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson
Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell (audio)
This is Happiness - Niall Williams
Intimations - Zadie Smith
Anti Diet - Christy Harrison
Intuitive Eating - Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
Dear Reader - Cathy Rentzenbrink
The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett (audio)
My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell
Redhead at the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler
Trust Exercise - Susan Choi
Dominicana - Angie Cruz
The Broygus - Laurence Kershook (unpublished)
On Earth We are Briefly Gorgeus - Ocean Vuong
Ghosts - Dolly Alderston (audio)
Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
Once Upon a River - Diane Setterfields
Just Like You - Nick Hornby
Just Ignore Him - Alan Davies
Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers
The Rosie Project - Graeme Simson
The Glass Hotel - Emily St John
The Wrong 'Un - Catherine Evans
Get Rich, Lucky Bitch - Denise Duffield-Thomas
Portrait of Britain - Hoxton Press
Books in 2019
Educated - Tessa Westover
Free Food for Millionaires - Min Jin Lee
London Calling - Clare Lydon
The Hearts Invisible Furies - John Boyce
How To Build a Girl - Caitlin Moran
Wild Pines - Ben Ross
The Immortalists - Chloe Benjamin
The Girl in Her Eyes - Jennie Ensor
This Naked Mind - Annie Grace
The Milkman - Anna Burns
Another Planet: A Teenager in Suburbia - Tracey Thorn
Circe - Madeline Miller
Don't You Forget About Me - Mhari McFarlane
Queenie - Candice Canty - Williams
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid
Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata
Love and Other Things To Live For - Louise Leverett
Lost Connections - Johann Hari
Flatshare - Beth O'Leary
The Cows - Dawn O'Porter
Ordinary People - Diana Evans
Sorry Not Sorry - Sophie Renald
The Lost Letters of William Woolf - Helen Cullen
You're a Bad Man Mr Gumm - Andy Stanton
The Fast 5 Diet - Bert Herring
The Way of the Iceman - Wim Hof and Koen de Jong
Lolita Man - Dan Proops
Portrait of An Addict as a Young Man - Bill Clegg
Notes to Self - Emilie Pine
Breakfast Dress - Lisa Edwards
The Most Difficult Thing - Charlotte Philby
Three Women - Lisa Taddeo
Missing - Alison Moore
Jardin Les Animaux - Paul Blaney
The Family Upstairs - Lisa Jewell
The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read - Philippa Perry (Audio)
French Exit - Patrick DeWitt
You Don't Die of Love - Stephen May
Fleishman is In Trouble - Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Sparks - Stephen Lesile
The Luckiest Guy Alive - John Cooper Clarke
The Future Starts Here - John Higgs (Audio)
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo
70s Dinner Party - Anna Pallai
Without Seeming to Care at All - Max Sydney Smith
Watling Street - John Higss (Audio)
The Strategy Book - Max McKeown
Amy and Isabelle - Elizabeth Strout
My Name is Leon - Kit De Waal
American Dirt - Jeanne Cummings
The Outrun - Amy Liptrot
Books in 2018
Home Fire - Kamla Shamsie
Swimming Lessons - Claire Fuller
Harmless Like You - Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
What Didn't Quite - Chris Meade
Lullaby - Leila Slimani
Don't Skip Out on Me - Willy Vlautin
The Music Shop - Rachel Joyce
Everything I Know About Love - Dolly Alderton
The Mighty Franks - Michael Frank
How To Murder Your Life - Cat Marnell
Pig Iron - Benjamin Myers
Esquimaux - Tom Tivnan
Born a Crime - Trevor Noah (Audio)
How to Be a Public Author - Francis Plug
When I Hit You - Meena Kandasamy
Hot Milk - Deborah Levy
Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jesmyn Ward
Social Media - Socially Mediocre - Misael Trujillo Suarez
Clean - Juno Dawson
Living The Dream - Isabel Duprey
I Am, I Am, I Am - Maggie O'Farrell (Audio)
The Lido - Libby Page
Motherhood - Sheila Heti
Crudo - Olivia Laing
21 Miles - Jessica Hepburn
Falling Out of Time - David Grossman
Old Baggage - Lissa Evans
Mad Girl - Bryony Gordon
The Female Persuasion - Meg Worlitzer
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock - Imogen Hermes Gowar
Take Nothing With You - Patrick Gale
The Party - Elizabeth Day
All That Was Lost - Alison May
Battlestar Suburbia - Chris McCrudden (uf)
The Overstory - Richard Powers
Calypso - David Sedaris (Audio)
Sabrina - Nick Drnaso
Calypso - David Sedaris
The Position - Meg Worlitzer
The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil - Stephan Collins
Milkman - Anna Burns
Ordinary People - Sally Rooney
Less - Andrew Grear (Audio)
The Wife - Meg Worlitzer
My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh
Ulverton - Adam Thorpe
Who We Were Before - Leah Mercier
The Marriage of Opposites - Alice Hoffman
Books in 2017
Grief is a Thing with Feathers - Max Porter
Everyone Brave is Forgiven - Chris Cleave
Here I Am - Jonathan Safran Foer (audio and kindle)
The Life to Come - Dudley Cruse
Mindfulness - Prof Mark Williams and Dr Danny Penman
4321 - Paul Auster (audio and kindle)
Give and Take - Adam Grant
Pond Stories - Claire-Louise Bennett
The Underground Railroad - Cols0n Whitehead
The Power - Naomi Alderman
Days Without End - Sebastian Barry (audio)
The Good Immigrant - Nikesh Shukla (audio)
The Lesser Bohemians - Eimer McBride
The Vanishing Man - Laura Cumming (audio)
Unami - Laia Jufresa
The Nix - Nathan Hill
The Fact of a Body - Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
Leaving from Atocho Station - Ben Lerner
The She was Gone - Lisa Jewell
They All Fall Down - Tammy Cohen
A Manual for Heartache - Cathy Rentzenbrink
London Lives - Jon Appleton
Brother of the More Famous Jack - Barbara Trapido
Man Walks Into a Bar - David Grossman
Under the Sun - Lottie Moggach
Love to The Power of Three - Tony Pletts
I Let you Go - Clare Mackintosh
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman
Seas of Snow - Kerensa Jennings
The Dark Circle - Linda Grant
Tin Man - Sarah Winman
Swing Time - Zadie Smith
Anatomy of a Scandal - Sarah Vaughan
Autumn - Ali Smith
The Matter of Faith - Bethany Wren
Elmet - Fiona Mozley
Essays in Love Story - Andy Matheson
The History of Wolves - Emily Findland (audio)
Mrs - Caitlin Macy
As a God Might Be - Neil Griffiths
Into The Mouth a Lion - Amelia Kyazze
My Animal Life - Maggie Gee
Fresh Complaint - Jeffery Eugenides
Mindset - Carol Dweck
Thirst - Kerry Hudson
Winter - Ali Smith
How To Stop Time - Matt Haig
Exit West - Mohsin Hamid
Reservoir 13 - Jon McGregor
Manhattan Beach - Jennifer Egan
Little Fires Everwhere - Celeste Ng
Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney
Books in 2016
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
Nemesis: One Man and His Battle for Rio - Misha Glenny
First One Missing - Tammy Cohen
Dangerous When Wet - Jamie Brickhouse
The Illuminiations - Andrew O'Hagan
On the Move: A Life - Oliver Sacks
Why Can You Be Happy When You Can Be Normal - Jeanette Winterson (audio)
Alive, Alive Oh - Diana Athill (audio)
16 - Alistair Roberts
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara (audio and kindle)
The Kind Worth Killing - Peter Swanson
Ready to Love - Jon Appleton
The Vegetarian - Han King
Glorious Heresies - Lisa McInerney
Almost Happy - Brian Kaplan
Paper Houses - Michele Roberts
Curation: The Power of Selection in a World of Excess - Michael Bhaskar
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things - Bryn Greenwood
Owl Song at Dawn - Emma Claire Sweeney
The Infinite Home - Kathleen Alcott
The Most Dangerous Place on Earth - Lindsey Lee Johnson
The Girls - Emma Cline
Client A. J. - V Schonfeld
Hampstead Fever - Carol Cooper
The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt - Tracey Farr
Number 11 - Jonathan Coe
Blindside - Jennie Ensor
The Many - Wyl Menmuir
Watching Willow Watts - Talli Roland
Purity - Jonathan Franzen
Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff
The Swimming Pool - Louise Candlish
She Was Bad - Tammy Cohen
When Were On a Break - Lindsey Kelk
Yesterday - Felicity Yap
The Sellout - Paul Beatty
The Techno Pagan Octopus Messiah - Ian Winn
Wicked Whispers - Jessica Callum
Sixteen, Sixty-One - Natalie Lucas
Books in 2015
Us - David Nicholls (Audio)
The Light Between Oceans - ML Stedman
The Screen Savers - Bryan Romaine
Angel on Blackberry Hill - Rachel Mann
Mr Mac and Me - Esther Freud
A Year of Reading Dangerously - Andy Miller (Audio)
The Crimson Petal and The White (uf) - Michael Faber
Mussel Feast - Birgid Vanderbeke
Azareal's Dragonflame - Rachel Stohler
The Crimson Petal and The White (uf)- Michael Faber
(The Last of the) Poly Girls - Helen Bagnall
Envy and the Veil - Dan Proops
The Humans - Matt Haig
Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Audio)
Her - Harriet Lane
Life Drawing - Robin Black
The Fat Lady's Daughter - Charles Kriel
How to Thrive in the Digital Age - Tom Chatfield
Girl on a Train - Paula Hawkins
The Ghost - Andrew Lowe
Mira Corpora - Jeff Jackson
Nora Webster - Colm Tobin (Audio)
Home at The End of the World - Julia Rochester
Metalines - Rachel Lynes
Take Me Byt the Hand - Meg Massey
We Were Liars - E Lockhart
The House at Roc Noir - Julia Laflin
Reasons to Be Alive - Matt Haig
The Last Act of Love - Cathy Rentzenbrink
After Before - Jemma Wayne
Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale - Andrew Kane
You Don't Have to Live Like This - Ben Markovitz
This Book Will Change Your Life - A M Homes
The Green Road - Anne Enright
The Third Wife - Lisa Jewell
Outline - Rachel Cusk
The Last Pilot - Benjamin Johncock
My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante
A Place Called Winter - Patrick Gale
Shanghai Passenger - Lucy Brydon
The Good Son - Paul McVeigh
All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
Death of a Diva (uf) - Derek Farrell
Jesus' Son - Denis Johnson
Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel
Books in 2014
Metawars - Jeff Norton
The Lowlands - Jhumpi Lahiri
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
The Curve - Nicholas Lovell
Family Likeness - Caitlin Davies
The Examined Life - Stephen Grosz
The Greengage Summer - Rumer Godden
Professional Intelligence on How to Manage People - Paula Jago
The Cormorant - Chuck Wendig
Yellow Crocus: A Novel - Laila Ibrahim
The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer
Maggie and Me - Damian Barr
Mrs Hemmingway - Naomi Wood
Home - Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone
The Free - Willy Vlautin
Bark - Lorrie Moore
Northline - Willy Vlautin
The Graduate - Charles Webb
Talking to Ourselves - Andres Neuman
Single in the City - Michele Gorman
The Dinner - Herman Koch
Swear Down - Russ Litten
The Butterfly Storm - Kate Frost
The Day My Life Changed - Annie Francis-Clark
This Book Will Change your life - Andy Ritchie
Magpies - Mark Edwards
The Interestings - Meg Wolitzer
Animals - Emma Jane Unsworth
Summer Child - Diane Chamberlaine
Fractured - Dani Atkins
Full Circle - Keith Grissett
All The Birds, Sleeping - Evie Wyld
Elizabeth is Missing - Emma Healey
The Broken - Tamar Cohen
Sod the Bitches - Steven Berkoff
The Modern Depression Guidebook - Dylan Brody
Heirs and Graces - Sally King
Mockstars - Christopher Russell
My Beautiful Game - Nancy Dell'Olio
Breathing Out - Karen Hockney
A Song for Issy Bradley - Carys Bray
As They Slept (Book 1) - Andy Leeks
Summer House with Swimming Pool - Herman Koch
As They Slept (Book 2) - Andy Leeks
History of Rain - Niall Williams
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats - Jan-Philip Sendker
Social Engineer - Ian Sutherland
Romany and Tom - Ben Watt
J: A Novel - Howard Jacobson
We are All Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler
Digital and Social Media for Authors - Chris McCrudden
How to Be Both (uf) - Ali Smith
The Apologist - Jay Rayner
The Lemon Grove - Helen Walsh
The Virtues of the Table: How to Eat and Think - Julian Baggini
The Dark Net - Jamie Bartlett
How to Age - Anne Karpf
Box of Birds - Charles Fernyhough
Norm Chronicles - Michael Blastland and Professor David Spiegelhalter
March, Women, March - Lucinda Hawksley
Sonic Wonderland - Trevor Cox
The Walkers Guide - Tristan Gooley
The Bigger Prize - Margaret Heffernan
Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll - Zoe Cormier
Report from the Interior - Paul Auster
H for Hawk - Helen MacDonald
Books in 2013
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson
The Lighthouse - Alison Moore
The Audacious Mendacity of Lily Green - Shelley Weiner
The Murder of Halland - Pia Juul
The Good Father - Diane Chamberlain
The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
A Serpentine Affair - Tina Serkis
Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemmingway
A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki
Ten Things I've Learnt About Love - Sarah Butler
Kim - Rudyard Kipling (uf)
Bedsit Disco Queen - How I Grew Up and Tried to Be a Popstar - Tracey Thorn
Hellbent and Other Stories - Paul Blaney
Tell the Wolves I'm Home - Carol Rifka Brunt
Central Reservation - Will Le Fleming
Dirt - David Vann
The Pollyanna Plan - Talli Roland
The Middlesteins - Jami Attenberg
The Human Script - Johnny Rich
The Fast Diet - Michael Mosley
Skios - Michael Frayn
Career Change: stop hating your job - Joanna Penn
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
Night Rainbow - Claire King
Jia o Yi - Maury Shenk
Yellow Birds - Kevin Powers
The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey
Dear Sister - Judith Summers
Here and Now - Paul Auster and J.M Coetzee
The Orphan Masters Son - Adam Johnson (uf)
Mister Spoonface - Paul Blaney
A Greedy Man in a Hungry World - Jay Rayner
HhhH - Laurent Binet
Stoner - John Williams
Before I Met You - Lisa Jewell
A Virtual Love - Andrew Blackman
Feral Youth - Polly Courtney
Sisterland - Curtis Sittenfeld
One Step Too Far - Tina Seskis
The Little Book of Big Advice, How to be Successful at Work - Paula Jago
Still Alice - Lisa Genova
A Month in Music - Alex Watson
Where'd you go Bernadette - Maria Semple
The Customs House - Andrew Motion
The Trip to Echo Spring - Olivia Laing
The Mistresses Revenge - Tamar Cohen
Harvest - Jim Crace
The Cruellest Game - Hilary Bonner
The Shipwrecked House - Claire Trevien
Beautiful Ruins - Jess Walter
Waiting for Bluebeard - Helen Ivory
Catching the Cascade - Paul Lyalls
Kiss Me First - Lottie Moggach
Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer
The Circle - Dave Eggrs
Apple Tree Yard - Louise Doughty
Ghost Town - Catriona Troth
Running Like a Girl - Alexandra Heminsley
Books in 2012
Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch
The Pleasure Seekers - Tishani Doshi
Tideline - Penny Hancock
The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned - Wells Tower
The Personal History of Rachel Dupree - Ann Weisgarber
Pure - Andrew Miller
Star of the Sea - Joseph O'Connor
A Cupboard Full of Coats - Yvette Edwards
Fifty Shades of Grey - E L James
The Interrogative Mood - Padgett Powell
Tinkers - Paul Harding
The Paris Wife - Paula McLain
Me Before You - Jojo Moyes
The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman
Invisibles - Ed Siegle
Ghost Knigi - written and illustrated by Benjamin Sommerhalder
Until Thy Wrath Be Past: A Rebekah Martinsson Investigation - Asa Larsson
Capital - John Lanchester
Winter Journal - Paul Auster
50 Shades of Grey - E.L. James (re-read for April's book group)
Five to One - Chris Chalmers
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut (re-read for May's book group)
The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien
The Hare with the Amber Eyes - Edmund de Waal
Build a Man - Talli Roland
The Card - Graham Rawle
The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Mr Spoonface - Paul Blaney
Tiny Sunbirds Far Away - Christie Watson
Dark Dates (The Cassandra Bick Chronicles) - Tracey Sinclair
Canada - Richard Ford (uf)
British Voices: The UK in its own words - Joe Hayman
The Ten Secrets of Abundant Wealth - Adam Jackson
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce
The Anchoress - Paul Blaney
You Don't Have to Say you Love me - Sarra Manning
Cicada - K Davies
Swimming Home - Deborah Levy
Island of Dreams - Aline P'nina Tayar
Wonder - R J Palacio
Pnin - Vladimir Nabakov
The Posthumous Affair - James Friel
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Underground - Gayle O'Brien
Day of Atonement - Jay Rayner
Cain's Choice - Hekate Papadaki
Golden Handcuffs: The Lowly Life of a City High Flyer - Polly Courtney
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Two Timing - Alex Stephany
The Driver's Seat - Muriel Spark
The Last Shot - Colin Porter
The Lighthouse - Alison Moore
Mister Pip - Lloyd Jones
Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter (uf)
Handover - Paul Blaney
May We Be Forgiven - A.M. Homes
Broken - Daniel Clay
State of Wonder - Ann Patchett
Books in 2011
To the End of the Land – David Grossman
East of Eden (uf) – John Steinbeck
The Priveledges – Jonathan Dee
Successful Presentation Skills – Andrew Bradbury
Foolish Lesson in Life and Love – Penny Rudge
Boxer Beetle – Ned Beauman
The Fraction of the Whole – Steve Toltz
Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart
A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
Whatever you Love – Louise Doughty
Kill Your Friends – John Niven
Hand Me Down World – Lloyd Jones
The Pesthouse - Jim Crace
Orphelia in Pieces - Clare Jacobs
Rhyming Life and Death - Amos Oz
Ordinary Thunderstorms - William Boyd
Zeitoun - Dave Eggers
Fold - Tom Campbell
Annabel - Kathleen Winter
The Swimmer - Roma Tearne
Cats Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst
Pigeon English - Stephen Kelman
Before I go to Sleep - S J Watson
The Dukan Diet - Dr Pierre Dukan
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingslover
This is Not About Me - Janice Galloway
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi - Geoff Dyer
An Artist in the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
Instead of a Book: Letters to a Friend - Diana Athill
Snowdrops - A D Miller
The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes
Londoners - Craig Taylor
The Master - Colm Toibin
Lights Out in Wonderland - DBC Pierre
The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
The Language of Flowers -Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Past Imperfect - Julian Fellowes
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness - William Styron
The Financial Lives of Poets - Jess Walter
How to Be a Woman - Caitlin Moran
Books in 2010
American Wife – Curtis Sittenfeld
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
Invisible – Paul Auster
Property – Valerie Martin
A Single Man – Christopher Isherwood
On Blackberry Hill – Rachel Mann
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
Space Junk – Pauline Smith
A Gate at the Stairs – Lorrie Moore
Brooklyn – Colm Tolbin
Out Stealing Horses – Per Petterson
Diamond Star Halo – Tiffany Murray
The Glass Room – Simon Mawer
Pnin – Vladamir Nabakov
High Rise – J G Ballard
All My Friends are Superheroes- Andrew Kaufman
The Death of Bunny Munro – Nick Cave
Pale Fire (uf)- Vladimir Nabakov
Somewhere Towards the End – Diana Athill
Offshore – Penelope Fitzgerald
Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsession - Apostolos Doxiadis
Stet – An Editor’s Life – Diana Athill
Chowringhee by Sankar and Arunava Sinha
The Quickening Maze – Adam Foulds
An Education – Lynn Barber
Clear – Nicole Barker
The Finkler Question – Howard Jacobson
C – Tom McCarthy
In a Strange Room – Damon Galgut
Freedom – Jonathan Franzen
The Help – Kathryn Stockett
7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey
Any Human Heart – William Boyd
One Day – David Nicholls
Nourishment – Gerard Woodward
The Hand That First Held Mine – Maggie O’Farrell
Life of Pi – Yann Martell
Sunset Park – Paul Auster
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Millions – Frank Cottrell Boyce
The Canal – Lee Rourke
The Wilding – Maria McCann
26a – Diana Evans
Confession – Campaspe Lloyd Jacobs
Engleby – Sebastian Faulks
Brilliant Presentations – Richard Hall
Skippy Dies – Paul Murray
Nemesis – Philip Roth
The Uncommon Reader – Alan Bennett
Mr Chartwell – Rebecca Hunt
A Change of Climate – Hilary Mantel
I Curse the River of Time – Per Petterson
Zen Presentation – Gary Reynolds
Books in 2009
Fathers – Granta
Sudden Fiction – Robert Shapard
The Children’s Story – James Clavell
Wednesday Night Tupperware – Tracey Gilbert
The End of Alice – A N Hopper
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
The White Tiger – Aravino Adiga
The Death of Grass – John Christopher
Jerwood Arvon Young Writers Apprentiship
The Gathering – Anne Enright
The Believers – Zoe Heller
On the Other Hand – Chris Cleave
Micheal Tolliver Lives – Armistead Maupin
Notes from an Exhibition – Patrick Gale
The Trick is To Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
The Inventorist – Kate Ansell
The Cutting Room – Louise Welsh
Moab is My Washpot – Stephen Fry
Indignation – Philip Roth
Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman
Atmospheric Disturbances – Rivka Galchen
The Lazarus Project – Aleksander Heman
Lullabies for Little Criminals – Heather O’Neil
Stuart – A Life Backwards – Alexander Masters
Legend of a Suicide – David Vann
Breath – Tim Winton
The Whole Day Through – Patrick Gale
Books in 2008
Under the Skin – Micheal Faber
Tulip Fever – Deborah Moggach
Waterloo Sunset (uf) – Justine Shaw
The Sweetest Song – Penny Hancock
Apples – Richard Milward
The King is Dead – Jim Lewis
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
Chesil Beach – Ian McEwan
The Gum Thief – Douglas Coupland
In Search of the Crack – Robert Elms
Under Cover of Silence – Tom Merchant
Good Morning Midnight – Jean Rhys
Desperate Remedies – Paul Blaney etc
Gifted – Nikita Lalwani
When We Were Bad – Charlotte Mandelson
The Heart is Decieptful Above All Things – J T Leroy
Fluke – James Herbert
The Higher Realm – James Friel
Last Night Stories – James Salter
Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafron
Between Each Breath – Adam Thorpe
One Good Turn – Kate Atkinson
A Spot of Bother – Mark Haddon
Sarah – J T Leroy
A Golden Age – Tahmina Anam
I Can Make you Thin – Paul McKenna
Like Rabbits – Lynne Bryan
Girl Meets Boy – Ali Smith
The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Mohsin Hamid
Pastorralia – George Saunders
A Sort of Life – Graham Greene
On Becoming a Novelist – John Gardner
Three Uses of the Knife – David Mamet
How I Live Now – Meg Rosoff
Exit Music – Ian Rankin
The Mysteries of Glass – Sue Gee
London Fields – Martin Amis
Tulip Fever – Deborah Moggach
Neuromancer – William Gibson (uf)
De Niro’s Game – Ravi Hage
The Lanaguage of Others – Clare Morrall
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Personal – Jonathan Saffron Foer
Exit Ghost – Philip Roth
Man in the Dark – Paul Auster
How to Completely Disappear and Never be Found – Doug Richmond
Books in 2007
Two Tall Tales and One Short Novel: Anthology of Shorter Fiction – Heidi James, Kay Sexton and Lucy Fry
Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
Mother’s Milk - Edward St Aubyn
Atomised - Michel Houellebecq and Frank Wynne
Crow Lake – Mary Lawson
A Good School – Richard Yates
The Night Watch – Sarah Waters
The Book of Israel – Jeremy Gavron
Bird by Bird – Anne Lamont
Everyman – Philip Roth
Up the Junction – Nell Dunn
Oranges are not the only fruit – Jeannette Winterson
Boy in the World = Niall Williams
Poor Cow - Nell Dunn
Black Swan Green – David Mitchell
Never the Bride – Paul Magrs
Long Way Down – Nick Hornby
The Book of Dave – Will Self
Gould’s Book of Fish –Richard Flannagan
I am not Jackson Pollock – John Haskell
Happy Accidents – Tiffany Murray
Alice’s Masque – Lindsay Clarke
Ali and Nino – Kurban Said
The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd
Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky
The Glass Bees – Ernst Junger
Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell
The Pale Horse – Agatha Christie
Wish I May – Justine Picardie
What Was Lost – Catherine O’Flynn
Be Near Me – Andrew O’Hagan
Moldovian Pimp – Edgardo Cozarjnksy
Kalooki Nights – Howard Jacobson
Disobedience – Naomi Alderman
Travels in the Scriptorium – Paul Auster
Rapid Results Referrals – Ray Sheppard
The Accidental Tourist – Anne Tyler
The New High Protein Diet – Charles Clarke
Apathy and Other Small Victories – Paul Neilan
Vacant Possession – Hilary Mantel
Carry Me Down – HJ Hyland
Not All Tarts are Apples – Pip Granger
The House of Meetings – Martin Amis
Blink – Malcolm Gladwell (uf)
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
Cider with Rosie – Laurie Lee
Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon (uf)
Eleanor Rigby – Douglas Coupland
Books in 2006
Beyond Black – Hilary Mantel
Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry – B.S. Johnson
Only Human – Susie Boyt
Only Say The Word – Niall Williams
Skylark – Dezso Kosztolanyi
The Day at Nightfall – Colette Dunne
Eleven Types of Loneliness - Richard Yates
Mr Spoonface – Paul Blaney
Giving up the Ghost – Hilary Mantel
The Hungry Years – William Leith
Tales of the Decongested Vol I - edited by Paul Blaney and Rebekah Latin Rawstrone
Digging to America – Anne Tyler
The Accidental – Ali Smith
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Talmud and the Internet – Jonathan Rosen
Windows on the World – Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne
Patrimony – A True Story – Philip Roth
Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Brooklyn Follies – Paul Auster
Electra – Sophocles
Slaves of Solitude – Patrick Hamilton
Books in 2005
What we Talk about when we talk about love – Raymond Carver
Oracle Nights – Paul Auster
Metemorphosis – Franz Kafka
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim – David Sedaris
The Colour of Memory – Geoff Dyer
Trumpet – Jackie Kay
Two Serious Women – Jane Bowles (uf)
The Hiding Place – Trezza Azzopardi
Small Island – Andrea Levy
Penguin Lost – Andrey Kurkov
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Ghostwritten – David Mitchell
The Light of Day – Graham Swift
The Way we Wore- A Life in Threads – Robert Elms
The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Super Sonic 70s – Ali Smith
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
The Search – Geoff Dyer
Breathing Lessons – Anne Tyler
Nine Lives – Bernice Reubens
The Colour Purple – Alice Walker
The Rotter’s Club – Jonathan Coe
Q and A – Vikas Swarup
An Experiment in Love – Hilary Mantel
The Line of Beauty – Alan Hollinghurst
A Complicated Kindness – Miriam Toews
I’ll Go to Bed at Noon – Gerard Woodward
As Meat Loves Salt – Maria McCann
What a Carve Up – Jonathan Coe
Otherwise Pandemonium – Nick Hornby
Altered Carbon – Richard K Morgan (uf)
The Bee Season – Myla Goldberg
Books in 2004
Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
So the Wind Won’t Blow it Away – Richard Brautigan
Hotel World – Ali Smith
My Loose Thread – Dennis Cooper
Rings of Saturn – W G Sebald
Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do it – Geoff Dyer
Uncle Tungsten – Memoirs of a Chemical Boyhood – Oliver Sacks
Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time – Mark Haddon
Out of Sheer Rage – Geoff Dyer
Coma – Alex Garland
Break it Down – Lydia Davis
Popular Music – Mikael Niemi
Celestial Navigation – Anne Tyler
Paris Trance – Geoff Dyer
On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft – Stephen King
A Girl could Stand Up – Leslie Marshall
The Amateur Marriage – Anne Tyler
Collected Short Stories – John Cheever (uf)
For Esme with Love and Squalor – J D Salinger (uf)
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseni
The Good Doctor – Damon Galgut
Books in 2003
One Hit Wonder – Lisa Jewell
My Lover’s Lover – Maggie O’Farrell
Four Lessons of Love – Niall Williams
The Battersea Park Raod to Enlightenment – Isabel Losada
A Child Called It – Dave Pelzer
Poddy and Dingan/Specks in the Sky – Ben Rice
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant – Anne Tyler
What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
The Book of Israel – Jeremy Gavron
Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
Patchwork Planet – Anne Tyler
The Ballard of the Sad Café – Carson McCullers
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things – Jon McGregor
Book in 2002
Jimmy Corrigan or The Smartest Kid on Earth – Mr F C Ware
The Little Prince – Antoine de Sand-Exupery
If I Don’t Know – Wendy Cope
Misdventures – Sylvia Smith
Getting into Poetry – Paul Hyland
A Head Full of Blue – Nick Johnstone
Death and the Penguin – Andrew Kurkov
Angela’s Grotto (uf) – Russell Hoban
And When Did you Last See Your Father – Blake Morrison
Women With Men – Richard Ford
Out of Mind – J Bernlef
The Sports Writer – Richard Ford
The House of Sleep – Jonathan Coe
The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
One for My Baby – Tony Parsons
Austerlitz – W G Sebald
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
The Cast Iron Shore – Linda Grant
Reading in the Dark – Seamus Deane
True Tales of American Life – Edited by Paul Auster
Leadville – Edward Platt
The Emigrants – W.G Sebald
The Leopard – Guisseppe Tomasidi Lampedusa
The Elephant Vanishes – Haruki Murakami
Girl with the Pearl Earring – Tracey Chevalier
Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
Books in 2001
Great Apes – Will Self
As If – Blake Morrison
Seeing Voices – Oliver Sacks
The Human Stain – Philip Roth
Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
After you’re gone – Maggie O’Farrell
Regeneration – Pat Barker
Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow – Peter Hoeg
Norweigan Wood- Haruki Murakami
Young Adam – Alexander Trocchi
Twelve ‘ How Should a Young Woman Live Now’ – Vanessa Jones
What are you like? – Anne Enright
South of the Border, West of the Sun – Haruki Murakami
Call if you Need me – Raymond Carver
Pilgrim – Timothy Findley
The Ballad of Peckham Rye – Muriel Spark
Snowblind – Robert Sabbag (uf)
The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle
The Butterfly Battle – Neil Behrmann
Therapy – David Lodge
Love that Dog – Sharon Creech
Rock Springs – Richard Ford
A Wild Sheep Chase – Haruki Murakami
The Pupil (poems) – W. S. Merwin
Carry Me Across the World – Ethan Canin
30 Days in Sydney – Peter Carey (uf)
KPax – Gene Brewer (uf)
Disgrace – J. M. Coetzee
Man and Boy – Tony Parsons
The Divine Secret of the Ya Ya Sisterhood – Rebecca Wells
The Collected Stories – Alice Munro (uf)
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – Jose Saramago (uf)
Stop Thinking and Start Living – Richard Carlson
Rembrandt’s Whore – Sylvie Matten
Both Sides Now – Joni Mitchell
Learning to Swim – Graham Swift (uf)
Books in 2000
Eva Luna – Isabel Allende
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich –Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Pilgrimage – Paulo Coehlo
Harry Potter and Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling
An Intimate History of Humanity – Theordore Zeldin (uf)
The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
The Mouse and His Child – Russell Hoban
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
Bridget Jones – The Edge of Reason
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
I, Dreyfus – Bernice Reubens
Thirty-Nothing – Lisa Jewell
The Horizontal Instrument – Christopher Wilkins
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
Chocolat – Joanne Harris
The Road to Los Angeles – John Fante
As It Is In Heaven – Niall Williams
Books in 1999
Thus Spoke Zaruthrustra – Frederich Nietzche (uf)
Girlfriend in a Coma – Douglas Coupland
Hand to Mouth – Paul Auster
Bright Lights, Big City – Jay McInerney
Aubrey Beardsley – Stephen Calloway
Idylls of the Marketplace – Regenier Gagnier (sp?)
Mao II – Don Delillo
Gut Symmetries – Jeanette Winterson
What Maisie Knew – Henry James
Arms and the Man – Bernard Shaw
Nausea – Jean-Paul Satre
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
Underworld – Don Delillo
The Importance of Being Ernest – Oscar Wilde
The Essence of the Thing – Madeleine St John
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle – Elaine Showalter
Endgame – Samuel Beckett
The Man of the Crowd – Edgar Allen Poe
Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett
Rubbish Theory – Michael Thompson
In the Country of the Last Things – Paul Auster
City of Glass – Paul Auster
Generation X – Douglas Coupland
Underground – Tobias Hill
The Myth of Sisyphus – Albert Camus
Hot Chocolate of the Mysterical Soul – edited by Ameile Ford (sp?)
The Story of My Disappearance – Paul Watkins
The Doctor’s Dilemma – George Bernard Shaw
Timbuktu – Paul Auster
American Pastoral – Philip Roth
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
The Reader – Bernard Schlink
Timequake – Kurt Vonnegurt
Scar Culture – Toni Davidson
I Married a Communist – Philip Roth
Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
Bloomberg by Bloomberg with help from Matthew Winkler
Books in 1998
Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
Daisy Miller - Henry James
The Real Thing - Henry James
Fear of Flying - Erica Jong
The Awakening - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Yellow Wallpaper - Kate Chopin
Post Office - Charles Bukowski
The Shipping News - E. Anne Proux
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
Adventures in Capitalism - Toby Litt
Quite Contrary -Suzanne Dunn
The Waste Land - T S Eliot
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Cane - Jean Toomber
As I Lay Dying- William Faulkner
The Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
The Celestine Prophecy – James Redfield
The Postmodern Scene, Excremental Culture and Hyper Anasthetics – Kroker and David Cook
Disco Biscuits – edited by Sarah Champion
235 - Geoff Ryman
The Mulching of America – Harry Crews
The Farewell Waltz – Milan Kundera
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Dombey and Son – Charles Dickens
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
Illness as Metaphor/AIDS and it’s metaphors – Susan Sontag
Villette- Charlotte Bronte
Against Nature – J.K. Huysmans
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
The Pre-Raphelites – Christopher Wood
The Zig Zag Kid – David Grossman
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Books in 1997
The Tempest -William Shakespeare
Songs of Innocence and Experience - William Blake
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Coleridge
Marx for Beginners - Ruis
Emma - Jane Austen
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Huck Finn - Mark Twain
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Postmodernism for Beginners - Richard Appigansi (sp) and Chris Garret
The Red Notebook - Paul Auster
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
The Scarlett Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Writing Down the Bones - Natalie Goldberg
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Turlupin - Leo Perutz
Hallucinating Foucault - Patricia Duncker
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
The Last of the Mohicans - James Fennimore Cooper
Last Orders - Graham Swift
Factotum - Charles Bukowski
The Beach - Alex Garland
Frederick Douglas
Slaves of New York - Tama Jonowitz
Japanese Fairy Stories - J Robert Magee
Walt Whitman including Song of Myself
Quite Ugly One Morning - Chistopher Brookmyre
Books in 1996
Washington Square- Henry James
Lolita - Vladmir Nabakov
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (uf)
Dr Demarr - Paul Theroux
The Recruiting Officer - George Farquhar
Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard
The Sandman - Prelude and Nocturnes - Neil Gaiman
Our Country's Good - TimberDoulake Wertenbaker
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
The Sandman - The Dolls House - Neil Gaiman
Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
Marabou Stork Nightmares - Irvine Welsh
Generation X - Tales for the Accelerated Culture- Douglas Coupland
Smoke - Paul Auster
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
Emma - Jane Austen
Shampoo Planet - Douglas Coupland
Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
Prince of West End Avenue - Alan Isler
Tales of Ordinary Madness - Charles Bukowski
Djinn in the Nightingales Eye - A S Byatt
Under the Banyan Tree - R K Narayan
Mister Sandman - Barbara Gowdy
Gorleston - Henry Sutton
Morvern Callar - Alan Warner
Odyssey - Homer
Oedipus The King - Sophocles
Symposium - Plato
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The Divine Comedy - Dante
The Wife of Bath - Chaucer
The Alchemist - Paolo Coelho
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Unknown
The Metaphyiscial Poets, edited by Helen Gardner
Intimacy (Louise Bourgeois) - Paul Gardner
A Short Guide to Writing About Art- Sylvan Bauer(?)
Gulliver's Travels - Graham Swift
Patient, true story of a rare illness - Ben Watt
Life After God - Douglas Coupland
Books in 1995
Queen of the Damned – Anne Rice
Mate in Three – Bernice Reubens
The Elected Members – Bernice Reubens
The Moon Palace – Paul Auster
Autobiopsy- Bernice Reubens
Love is a Dog from Hell – Charles Bukowski
Kiss of a Spiderwoman – Manual Puig
Music of Chance – Paul Auster
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivez
Peeping Tom – Howard Jacobson
Leviathan – Paul Auster
Mr Vertigo – Paul Auster
Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
I Sent a Letter to My Love – Bernice Reubens
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues – Tom Robbins
A Personal Matter – Oe
Swimming to Cambodia – Spalding Gray
Miguel Street – V S Naipaul
In the Country of the Last Things – Paul Auster
Republican Party Reptile – P J O’Rourke
Madame Souzaska – Bernice Reubens
Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
The Law (uf) – Roger Vailland
Brighter Sun (uf) – Sam Selvin
Invention of Solitude – Paul Auster
Where I’m Calling From – Raymond Carver
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
The House of Mr Biswas – V S Naipaul
Complicity – Iain Banks
Mr Wakefields Crusade – Bernice Reubens
Let Them Call it Jazz – Jean Rhys
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
The Midnight Love Feast – Michael Fournier
The Te of Piglet – Benjamin Hoff
Christina Rossetti a biography – Frances Thomas
Scar Tissue – Michael Ignatieff
Matisse Stories – AS Byatt
The Watchman – Alan Moore
The Fetishist – Michael Fournier
Espedair Street – Iain Banks
New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
Home at Grasmere – Dorothy and William Wordsworth
Pig – Andrew Cowan
Green River Rising – Tim Willocks
Love Medicine – Louise Erdrich
Clare – a novel – John MacKenna
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – Oliver Sacks
The Sorrows of Young Werter – Goethe
(uf denotes unfinished)
The honeymoon was a time to celebrate the sweetness of your connection.
Aunt Harriet’s card had a real clover stuck on the front, an extra leaf drawn on in pencil. There was a large pile of them, all slipped in the front of her suitcase, an elastic band popped round the lot. A treat she’d decided to save herself until they were in the air.
“Oh, look.” She passed the next one to James. A cloud of glitter fell out onto his knee.
“Thanks.” He flashed his teeth at her, then slid back into conversation with the chap next to them, “–and before you could say Babycham, there was a bridesmaid with a black eye.”
How the other man laughed. What a treat, to have such an entertaining person as your husband. Honestly, she probably didn’t need the dreary books that seemed so necessary when she was packing. All moors and mists. Important that your fiction contrasted with surroundings. Lovely to pore your way through a bleak tale when all around was sun and sparkling waters.
Sourin, Rousay. So exotic. Wanting a little mystery after the infinitesimal order of the wedding, all she’d asked for was the name, nothing else. And a whole cottage to themselves, owned by some distant relative. For a month. Fancy that. The nose of the plane was dipping already. Obviously a connecting flight in Edinburgh.
“Have a great trip.” The man leaned over. “Orkney’s beautiful this time of year.” Something of her despair must have registered. “You know, rugged.” He abandoned her to James.
“That’s torn it.” He squeezed her hand, pressing the bones together.
“I brought bikinis and dresses.” Her new hat took up half the case. Black with a white shadow.
“There are clothes there. Those can be for me.” He waggled his eyebrows in that darling way. So it was to be rugs and firesides and howling winds. If anyone could make them fun, he could.
Mother had traipsed a mithering set of men though their door. All brains and dullness. Certainly not the sort for her. Clapped between her magazines were foreign adventures and escapades. Those beige-tinted men wouldn’t understand her needs. They’d sat on the good sofa, fiddling with their fingers, unable to meet her eyes.
All the girls had their eye on James. The fount of fun at a party, dashing between engagements. The first time she’d seen him was at the Kiddlington’s Ruby Wedding. He’d been leading a conga through the conservatory. A flock of dark hair, one wing arching down, drawing a line along the cheekbone.
Oh, not the fantastic prospects that mother had hoped for, but who needed that if you were to be bored for eternity? Better to snap up an interesting one. Never mind the envy her advances rewarded. Such a catch, it seemed the other girls didn’t bother to try. She’d accosted him by the buffet, dropped a stuffed olive in his hand and tucked the flick of hair behind his ear.
He’d seemed relieved when she suggested marriage. That sigh, she mistook it for bliss. Perhaps that should have been her first warning.
The honeymoon was to mark the waning of affection.
Great Aunt Hilda’s cottage was a drab blot at the end of a scuffed driveway. Low grey brick, it clashed awfully with the smart going-away suit she’d had tailored. More shocking still was the fading of James.
Once they were shut behind the creaked wooden door, the dull interior claimed him, settling him down in a dark corner to ponder the paper while she was left to open the windows in a vain attempt to invite warmth into the house. By the end of the week, he was even worse.
It was as though his vigour went into hiding once out of the glare of attention. In company, the enthusiasm would return. At drinks with a group that holidayed there each year, his spark returned. They feasted on venison and spluttered into their wine when he told them the story of the mailman whose trousers were too small.
Back at the cottage, his skin sallowed. Most days he sat immobile, flicking through crackly encyclopaedias or screwing the nob on the wireless. Away from the proximity of others, he withered.
“I thought you could do your, you know.” He waved his hand, a fluid gesture that encapsulated all of the soft and feminine that did not interest him. “Swimming.” She hadn’t wanted to go in the water on this trip. Her eyes were left pinched by those awful goggles.
“Oh god, James, don’t you ever just want to screw?” She savoured the filthy word. It had been something to tick off her list, finding out what it felt like when they left it in.
He offered her hand a squeeze. As if those things were done with, now he’d stuck a hand up her skirt behind the dance hall. Not the beginnings of sordid pleasure, as she’d hoped, but a limp handshake at the end of a transaction.
It would at least have been exciting if he were gay. They would have Gatsby-esque parties, frivolous associations with musical types. But here, again, he was found wanting. At the weekends, out of the sight of crowds, lassitude reigned.
On the island, circled by emptiness, the advertised excitement revolved around rocks. Grey lumps, ancient reminders of hauling, carving and thumping. Nothing beautiful in solid stones that upset the curve of the hills. After the cursory tours, she too shunned the company of others and went to the sea.
How grey and turgid, how fresh and unexpected those waves were. The saltwater licked her ankles, darting up between her legs. Stepping in brought a gasp. The cold that clutched there. Each time she dared herself to become a little more submerged. Trapped by rocks and grass, she found the lilting water lifted her frustrations.
The month was almost over.
“Off for a swim?” Her husband intoned the words from his darkened corner.
“I need to get out.” She thought her words daring. Perhaps they would excite a response.
The only reaction was the turn of a curled page.
Down she went to find the coast. The familiar tang of seaweed-salt at the back of her throat. Nubs of rock digging into her bare feet. Lapping up to her knees, deeper this time. In defiance of misery, she refused to wear her swimming costume.
She trailed a finger in the water. It tingled up her skin. As each frothing wave turned, she weighed it against her imaginings of this month. Tripping through waves, her large hat shading her face with pleasure.
This jarring vision spilt tears on her cheeks. Their presence was undeniable failure. How dismal to prove your mother right. She plunged her face in to wash away the shame. A splash and her head was submerged, the bitterness finding its way to her nose. Her mouth opened with a start as she pulled herself out.
Now drips chased down her cheeks, left lines on her dress. In one movement, she plunged her body beneath the surface. The shock of it jumped her breath out.
Listlessly, she raised her feet. Soon her weight was buoyed up, drifting her out over the depths. In places it found pockets of air and popped them, pressing fabric to her skin and lifting her petticoats away.
Fingers of moisture found their way inside. Hovering in the breakers, each wave pushed against her, legs splayed in the foam. Yet she didn’t move. A force held her there, pliant hands that pulled her in, claimed her. Eyes drooping, she caught flinches of fingers, a lip, in the white waters.
She was overcome.
James found her delirious on the bed, after following a trail of sodden footsteps through the stone-flagged house.
Her hair was a riot of seaweed and shell, a knowing curve to the shape of her smile.
The honeymoon is a time for initiations.
As she swelled, she took long baths in the clanking tub next to their bedroom. Poring over ads, looking for work, James didn’t notice the streams of salt she poured into the water as it bubbled out of the taps. Secreted beneath, she traced the line of her belly, letting the water hold her up, bathe her inside and out.
Playing on her pregnant influence, she cajoled James into buying seaweed crackers from the health shop, which she gorged on, topped with fish paste. When the months advanced she began to tire, taking herself to the swimming pool to wallow. The starched waters did little to ease her fatigue. She grew restless, wandering round the house, carrying glasses of water that tumbled drips in her wake.
“We need to go back to Sourin,” she announced, her belly clasped under her hands. The first chill of winter was tapping at the windows.
“There’s no hospital. Dreadful idea.” James had told all of their friends how proud he was to be a father. This information failed to reach his face.
“I must. There’s a train tomorrow.” She waved a timetable at him.
“Now, darling.”
“I need to get out.”
Perhaps something in the remembered phrase roused him. He submitted, packing a few items for himself as she gathered the tiny clothes and soft things given to her. A fluffy blue fish lay in her handbag, ready to greet the arrival.
She snuck to the sea over ice-crusted sand. It didn’t even seem cold. Perhaps she’d grown numb in the chill wind, but she imagined a pocket of water warmed, laid out for her visit. Despite her size, she still floated. The waves welcomed her, stretching her dress taught over the bump. How it rolled and swayed under her ribs, mimicking the movement of the shifting sea.
At the allotted time, a prim midwife appeared at their grey door. Greeting James, she walked through to where Ursula heaved on the bed. The door was shut firmly behind her patent leather shoes.
Pain rolled over her. Again and again, the tide of it increasing, pinching the deep places of her. At the peak, it crashed over, a gushing between her legs and a soft cry, gull-like, from a shell-red mouth.
“Ah.” The midwife clamped the child onto the breast, its skin a hushed blue. The cawing mouth settled. Such tiny grace in the wisps of hair on the crown.
A clattering. The woman lean towards this precious thing. In one hand were a large pair of iron scissors.
“No.” Ursula was unable to shoo her away.
The small fingers were splayed like fins. With one clean snip, the midwife pierced between thumb and forefinger. Between each digit on hand and foot, a silky webbing lay.
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Sarah is a writer who lives in London. She enjoys writing about gender issues and looking outside her window for inspiration. She has an MA in Creative Writing from City University and won the Spread The Word Novel competition in 2020. She was long listed for the Primadonna Prize 2020 and won the International Segora Short Story prize in 2015. Her short fiction, reviews and blogs have been published on a variety of platforms.
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This month in our Byte Experts series, we hear from author Marc Cox on how to launch a book in a pandemic.
As every first time author knows, there is nothing that quite matches the excitement and trepidation of one’s own book being out there and available to buy. This after all is the moment of truth. Will people read it? Will anybody buy it? What will people say?
It is the closest I have come to the feeling that a creative team must have when they present their ideas for an advertising campaign. Or how a painter must feel when they have their first exhibition. Part of your soul is on display.
My own book, The Business Case for Love, first appeared as an e-book on the 4th April 2020. A couple of weeks later my own copies of the hardback arrived and it became available on Amazon. I was all set. Here we go!
Except for one thing. We were in lockdown.
Unlike, lockdown 2, this was when the UK has been put into the deep freeze. Nobody dared move (except for their daily walk) with the constant refrain of ‘Stay Home. Protect The NHS. Save Lives’ ringing in our ears.
My dreams of a book launch were shattered, so what to do instead to get the word out, and try to gain some momentum? Here are my five tips for launching your book in Lockdown 2.
Create your own book launch.
My adult children plus daughter-in-law were staying with us, having fled London during the first wave of the great toilet roll shortage, so along with my wife, Karen, we created our own garden book launch. Which at least had the benefit of saving me well over the thousand pounds I was thinking of spending!
Using the photos of said author proudly holding his book, I started to promote The Business Case for Love on social media. LinkedIn (this was a business book, after all), Twitter and Instagram.
Once launched, the hard work begins.
Once launched, do not sit back and think ‘job done’. This needs to be a weekly activity and I have found there is absolutely no substitute for the slog of sitting there and sending a personal message to each and everyone of my contact list.
Keeping the message fresh is a must
To begin with this was essentially photos of me holding the book with different poses and backgrounds. I had actively encouraged people to contact me with what they thought of the book and quite soon, people started to send back comments and I even got my first 5*star review on Amazon. I would use these comments and reviews to refresh my posts.
Reach out beyond your core audience
Fellow authors want to support you. During the teeth of Lockdown 1, established authors, notably David Nichols of Us and Starter for Ten fame, were offering help. David ran a weekly twitter book launch for all first time authors and after I had messaged him, he included mine in early May.
My publisher, Palgrave MacMillan, is ultimately owned by the German company, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and they had decided to run a series of weekly live video sessions for their entire workforce of 15,000 or so employees worldwide featuring a range of authors to talk about their subject in the light of Covid-19 and I was thrilled to be one of the authors chosen.
One thing really does lead to another
Out of the blue, but as a direct consequence of my LinkedIn messaging, I was approached by a lady based in India who was intrigued by my book and was keen to do a You Tube video interview.
By this time, the world had discovered Zoom, and this first interview led to a series of live discussions based on some of the themes I have written about, with people from all around India. My Indian ‘Fan Club’ was born.
I also recorded a yet to be released podcast by a fellow author who lives in California. Plus I will send the occasional copy to business journalists when he or she has written an article which resonates with aspects of my book.
So my message to anybody who has their book launched in lockdown 2 is to think of promoting it as a full time job. Keep refreshing the message and one thing really does led to another.
In my case, my most recent news is that my publisher has submitted my book for the 2021 CMI Management Book of the Year.
Not surprisingly, this became the subject of my latest posts.
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London born, Marc is the founder of The Company Spirit and originator of the philosophy and approach called the ‘Business Case for Love’. Embraced by CEOs and Leadership Teams across the globe, who are looking for a different approach to creating an authentic company culture, the Business Case for Love works because it meets the needs and wants of today’s employees and customers.
A way of thinking forged from his own personal and business experiences. First, in advertising as a ‘suit’ for BBDO, then onto marketing when hired to modernise the image of BHS. These experiences changed the way Marc thought and led to the seeds of what he believes in and shares with his clients on a daily basis.
Finally, Marc worked as a partner in a brand consultancy before realising that his true passion lay in people and helping them love what they do.
Marc’s first book ‘The Business Case For Love-How Companies Get Bragged About Today’ was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020 and is available to buy from the publishers here.
She danced on me this morning. With her mother’s phone playing the songs she likes. She paused to change the song and then danced again. She was wearing new clothes I hadn’t seen before, white with navy stripes, light and moving in the air as she moved. And just one sock, as is her way. The air is no longer hot, it’s nice to get some bounces in to limber up the springs.
When I first arrived in February, the man and the woman, with their breath coming out in clouds in the cold, were shouting at each other when they found that two parts were missing, The motion-detector spotlights shined on their heads in those winter nights as they put it all together.
I never knew what it was like to be adopted by a family. I had days of non-stop dancing, bouncing, flipping and laughing, especially at the beginning. The children would bring others to come see me, and then I would have lots of them all at once, laughing and playing tag and falling over. I helped to keep them safe, with the zip closed, my netting pulled tights, and stable legs.
Then in March and April, suddenly there were no friends around, but my family was using me every day, for hours at a time. Sometimes the children would fight over who could go first. Other times they would go together, giggling and falling, sometimes one on the back of the other, until they collapsed in a heap.
Then, over time, the smaller one, she would spend more time on me alone. She jumped and danced and talked to herself in different voices, as if a whole set of characters were with her. When she caught her mother looking through the window, she would stop abruptly and shake her head and insist all would be ruined if she was observed.
The other child, not as small, preferred it when he could have the friends over. If he was alone, he jumped and flung himself about. Sometimes he landed on his back, or his front. Sometimes he would do a rotation and twist and land on his feet, then hit the net with his momentum. He seemed to like the rhythm, the pounding feeling going through his body. I could feel his weight and his power, and I responded with every bounce.
The tallest one, the father, he seemed too shy for me. Perhaps he thought I would shudder under his weight. I wouldn’t, but he didn’t know that.
The woman would sometimes come out too. At first, she was with the small ones, and they would laugh and sing and drop on their bottoms like nursery children. But later, as the weeks passed, the woman would only come by herself, after the children had quieted down and left me. She would climb the ladder, pull the zip, and lie down. No bouncing at all, just lying on her back looking at the clouds and the sky overhead. She didn’t need the music, like the small girl, or the pounding, like the boy. She just seemed to need me to be still, and to support her quietly for a moment in time.
It’s nice to be needed.
In the hot months I was sprayed with water, hit by water balloons, and filled with swimming toys. The boy invented new games with different sized balls all bouncing off him and each other. He grew taller and made up a game with his father outside the net, playing catch and jumping at the same time. The man stood with feet solidly on the ground, while the boy was constantly moving, jumping and twisting.
As the months went by, I saw less of the boy. He would come for just a few minutes for some heavy jumping, and then come off again.
The smaller child though, she is the most loyal. She continues to bring out the music and the different characters and seems to enter her own world, ensconced in my circle of netting and springs.
But today, she only danced for a moment in the morning and then ran off when her mother called.
She is gone now, and I don’t know where she is. I hope she’ll be back.
I am here. Nothing had changed for me.
Here, waiting.
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Amelia B. Kyazze is a writer, photographer and editor based in southeast London. Her debut novel, Into the Mouth of the Lion, is due to be published by Unbound in 2021. Based on her notebooks and photographs from when she worked in Angola in 2002, the book is about a photographer searching for her missing sister at the end of Angola's civil war.
More background: for 18 years she worked with humanitarian aid organisations such as Oxfam, Save the Children and the British Red Cross. She travelled to more than forty countries documenting humanitarian crises and efforts to rebuild or prepare for future disasters. Her work took her to Angola, where Into the Mouth of the Lion is set, as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur (Sudan), Uganda, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nepal, India and many other countries across Africa, Asia and Southern Europe.
She also writes short stories, and Covid in Brixton, a light-hearted story about friendship during the time of the pandemic, was story of the month for the Byte Shorts showcase in May 2020. Another piece Rush Hour is included in the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology 2019. In addition, she writes book reviews of children's literature.
She was encouraged to find that she was long-listed for the Mslexia Woman’s First Novel Prize 2017.
Amelia is a member of the Greenwich Writers Meetup, sharing drafts and tips with other writers. In January 2020 she started a new venture, Writing the 7 Senses, facilitating creative writing workshops for children and adults, in schools and at local festivals.
About her publications:
As part of her humanitarian work, she has delivered speeches in Geneva, Brussels and at UN side events in New York. She has been interviewed by CNN, Al-Jazeera and many other news outlets. Her non-fiction work has been published in the Huffington Post, the International Review of the Red Cross, ODI/HPN and many other places.
Her photography has been published in a series of books, The Humanity in the Landscape Series, available on Blurb.com. She has participated in solo and group shows of her photography in New York, London and Oxford. Her photography portfolio can be viewed here.
To tie in with Karen Hockney's members' webinar , How To Become a Successful Freelance Writer, which we'll be running on October 21st 2020. here are some of her top tips on making it on the page.
So you want to be a successful freelance writer? I don’t blame you – the idea of writing sparkling copy while being in charge of your own earning power, hours and workload is an attractive one especially during times of great job anxiety and lack of workplace security.
After several years spent working at the sharp end of journalism on what we used to call the ‘Fleet Street’ nationals, I branched out into the freelance writing world and I’ve never looked back.
The good news is, there have never been more openings for writers to have work published. The internet has opened up an amazing and diverse choice of specialist websites, digital publications and news gathering sites through to blogs, podcasts and self-publishing portals for new authors. There are also lots of opportunities to ghost-write for people who are leaders in their field but not necessarily great writers.
I used my three decades of experience as a writer, journalist and author to create The Complete Guide to Becoming a Successful Freelance Writer and I’m sharing below five of my top tips for crafting a successful and enjoyable career in freelance writing.
Work on your pitching skills. This is how you sell an idea into a publication. Make your pitches polite and brief-ish, laying out the main points clearly and identify any timeline or hook if a piece is to tie in with, say World Cancer Day, a new book being published or a particular event. Only send one pitch per email…commissioners are busy people and don’t want to be blindsided by several ideas at once.
Always do your research. I cannot stress this enough. You simply can’t cut corners here. Whether you’re interviewing a CEO for a marketing article, an influencer about their viral channel or a celebrity about their new TV show, there’s no excuse for a lack of research. This also goes for researching the companies, publications and websites you want to work for. Your subject will be flattered and impressed that you have done your homework before reaching out to them.
Fulfil your deadlines competently. If you’re going to be late filing copy (never advisable but sometimes unavoidable) give your editor or commissioner the heads up in advance. Be the reliable snappy writer who delivers on time or even better, slightly in advance. They’ll remember you - and value you - for it.
Discipline is vital. There’s always something else to distract you if you’re working freelance (dishwasher duty, laundry, Line of Duty even) but planning your day around your paid workload and putting that before the chores is a non-negotiable unless you really enjoy burning the midnight oil and getting four hours sleep.
Join an online writing community. As enjoyable and fulfilling as writing can be, by its very nature it can also be a solitary, sometimes lonely endeavour. There are many online writing communities and groups that you can sign up to, which are the perfect place to find answers to your writing questions and discuss the vagaries of writing life with people who understand what you’re talking about. Bytethebook.com is the perfect example of one such writing community – after all, we all need a little support at times or even someone in the same boat to sound off to!
- To enrol on The Complete Guide to Becoming a Successful Freelance Writer, just click on this link here.
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Karen Hockney has three decades of experience as a journalist writing for UK national newspapers and magazines on news, features, entertainment, travel, health, interiors, food, film and music.
She cut her teeth working with Piers Morgan at The Sun and her freelance clients include The Times, The Sunday Times, You Magazine, The Metro, The Evening Standard, The Daily Mail, Radio Times, Heat, Hello, OK, Red and The Telegraph. Karen has had lunch with Nelson Mandela in Cape Town and shared a limo with the Desperate Housewives in Hollywood. She’s dodged verbal bullets from Sir Alan Sugar, Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay, swapped music tips with Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne, raced in the US Bull Run and interviewed street kids targeted by death squads in Colombia.
She has also worked for corporate clients, writing promotional material for Liberty, Disney, FremantleMedia, BBC, ITV, C5, and Talkback Thames and regularly contributes to Sky with online content from location trips abroad.
Karen gave media training to the final live show contestants in the first series of The X Factor. She swapped London for the Cote d'Azur and regularly covers the Cannes Film Festival, the Monte Carlo TV Festival, MIPCOM, MipTv and Cannes Lions festivals.
Her first book Breathing Out is available on Amazon and KDP and her second, The Boy in 7 Billion, was published by Mirror Books.
For more information on Karen please check out her website karenhockneymedia.com.
What if there has been no turning point in your life for twenty-two years? You wait for something to spur you into a change. There have been fluctuations, and movement, but no critical moments. Never have you thought: My Life Starts Now. Not even when you decided to live alone after having spent ten years in different flats with a variety of flat-mates. That decision was easy; not pivotal. It was what you preferred and you are content on your own. But where is the big plot of your life?
You’ve believed in letting life unfold. Not for you frenetic stabs at this or that. Life has ribboned out, but rather distractedly. When you look up from the steering wheel of your imaginary buttercup convertible as it rolls along a green and pleasant land you don’t see any huge signs marking junctions or routes you could take instead. The highway glides over vale and hill, then loops to you don’t-know-where.
The real bus you’re sitting in this afternoon wheezes on as you take in the cityscape from the top deck. The bus is hibiscus red, the roads and pavements are grey but it is summer and this year it is hot, people are a riot of colour. Those ditsy floral dresses, those linen shirts, those wide pastel culottes, those man-sandals. The bus inches along the jammed road. They will pedestrianise this thoroughfare one day, the city mayor’s office has a plan, because see how the street is rammed with shoppers. You gaze down at the glitzy store windows. It’s then the slogan catches your eye. THIS LIPSTICK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
Who allowed that? The Advertising Standards Authority let that pass? Can a lipstick change your life? Heck, can it change anything?? Can it change your summer a teeny-weeny bit??? You lean forward, press the button so the ‘Bus stopping’ sign lights up with a ting. You run into the department store and prowl the cosmetics counters until you find the brand emblazoned under the slogan. Brand L. The heat is making you crazy, 30 degrees in London, yes, it’s making you pathetic, and making the pavements sigh, but never mind. You stand by the counter and say to the girl with triple-mascaraed lashes: ‘I want to change my life.’
She’s ready to serve but slightly startled. ‘The new lipstick?’ she asks. She’s smart. She pulls out a tray of sample colours. ‘Which shade would you like to try?’\
‘All three of these will change my life?’ You sound like you’re gasping for air, but actually your shoulders are shaking. You’ve begun to laugh in a way that is unseemly. You control yourself and eye up the round smudges of colour. Your finger hovers over a vivid pink. Let me guess, you think, Watermelon Squeeze? Candy Too Sweet? Profound Rose? You have form here, you know about these things.
‘This?’ The sales assistant doubtfully dabs the rosy stickiness on your lips. ‘Oh,’ her voice rises in surprise, ‘This bright colour does suit you.’ Who is she convincing?
‘I’ll take it. It will change my life. Lipstick can do that.’
She looks at you sharply; are you mocking the brand or cosmetics in general? You ask: ‘What’s the name of this colour?’
She hands you a shiny packaged tube. You peer at it. Judicious Use. You give up, your shoulders heave and rock.
‘Are you alright, darling?’ A light touch on your hand. She’s not sure if you’re crying or laughing. At this point you’re not sure either.
‘What kind of name is that?’ You give a little hiccup. ‘That’s a stupid name for a lipstick.’
She holds out her hand for the offending item.
‘Two years back I created names for lipsticks,’ you tell her as you return it. ‘It took hours, no, days, for one season’s line. For brand Y.’
‘That’s such a good brand,’ she responds.
‘Pink Bluff, Poppy Chase, Catalina Nudie, now those are names for lipsticks. The brand founder loved the list I came up with.’
‘Do you want to try another shade?’
‘No!’
She retreats behind the counter but you can’t stop telling her.
‘And then I did the next season. Jaisalmer Bride, Sahara Sky, Balinese Sunset. But I never felt like buying any of those lipsticks, you know. I just stuck to my usual.’
‘Are you buying this? Is there anything else you’d like?’
‘Daring Rosie, Bolder Goldie, Cheekier Mauve. I must’ve named forty lipsticks and glosses.’
She takes this as acquiescence that I’m a hooked consumer. ‘That’ll be sixteen pounds, please. Do you have a store card?’
‘Plum Perfection, Flawless Coral, Immaculate Sex.’
‘Very nice indeed. Tap your credit card here please.’
‘Then the founder-lady wanted something new. She liked to travel she said. So I came up with places with Y. To flatter her and her eponymous brand. Yakeshi, Yangon, Yamuna.’
‘Do you need directions to anywhere else in the store? There’s tea and cake in the café.’
What does she think? You’re not an old lady who needs tea! You’re only forty. Alright, plus two. ‘York, Yaroslavl, Yazd.’
‘The exit is that way,’ she points. She hands you a cute little silver bag with your cute little lipstick in it.
When you go out the next Saturday, just for a wander in your zone, you wear your perky ‘Use Judiciously’. Who named this? How did they get away with it? Droll but if it’s part of a This Lipstick Will Change Your Life campaign this name doesn’t cut it. You wonder if you should’ve bought another shade, one with a better name! ‘Slay Dragons.’ Did somebody do that already?
You ask for your turmeric latte at the local café and you grin pinkly, ‘Hi Naomi, am I stuck in a rut?’
‘Hi.’ The young woman at the till is drooping in the heat, but her smile stays cheery. ‘I don’t know you well enough to know.’ Oh my. A considered answer.
‘Same order every time,’ you point to your drink and your almond croissant.
‘You’re not the only one.’
It’s too hot in the café. This never happens, but it’s happening this July. You sit out on the bench under a tree, sipping, nibbling, perhaps nipping at life. Life is using you judiciously. It’s not wearing you out or treating you bad. In your case it’s just trundling along, not doing much. Leaving life to unfold may not have been the right move. But you trusted in life. And prayers. And now look.
An elderly couple seat themselves on the bench on the opposite side of the road. The lady’s skirt flares, her varicose veins are out to catch the summer air. His short-brimmed straw hat barely keeps the sun off the red tip of his nose. They munch into their sandwiches. You smile across at them, you feel indulgent. You might want a sweet man by your side were you ever to turn into a scented old lady, but you don’t want to be them. Not him, not her. You want to be you. Changing your life, or not, one judicious lipstick at a time.
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Kavita is a prize-winning writer whose work has appeared in anthologies and literary journals worldwide and been broadcast on BBC Radio, Zee TV and European radio stations. She is the author of the novel Manual For A Decent Life which won the Brighthorse Prize as a manuscript. She has published two poetry collections: Patina and Raincheck Renewed. She has worked as an editor for literary journals and she’s also the co-founder of ‘The Whole Kahani’ collective. Find out more about her and get in touch with her via http://www.kavitajindal.com.
This month in our Byte Experts series, we hear from Author, Ghostwriter, Writing Coach & Content Creator, Nicole Johnston on how to overcome writers block.
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You’ve started strong, you’ve written every day and your word count is rising. Things are going well and suddenly grind to a halt. What’s happening and how do you get your creative mojo back? There is a myriad of reasons for writer’s block but here are some of the most common with some simple solutions.
1.Overwhelm
It happens to most of us. We’ve written a lot – but one day it hits us just how much we still have to do. That can cause overwhelm.
Break your writing down into bitesize pieces. Don’t take on the whole book at once. Set yourself achievable daily goals. Achieving those goals each day is your only requirement. Don’t think about the rest of the book.
‘Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ E.L. Doctorow
2.Editing, researching, or reviewing while you write
Moving between the right and left sides of our brain causes writer’s block. We use the logical side of our brain for work and study, but the creative sides of our brains are used less often. That makes it harder to get into and harder to stay in the flow. If we jump back into our logical brain while writing, we will struggle to pick up where we left off.
Do not edit, review or research while you are writing. Leave it until after your writing session.
‘’Never edit as you write’ Michael Malice
3.Perfectionism
Trying to write a ‘good’ book keeps us in the logical side of our brain. That’s where our inner perfectionist/critic ‘lives’. No-one’s creative flow can withstand a constant barrage of criticism as they write.
People don’t want to read a ‘good’ book they want a great story. J.K. Rowling is a great example – her writing isn’t perfect, but she is a genius storyteller. A book written from the logical side of your brain be ‘perfect’, but it may also be ‘perfectly dull’. Use the creative side of your brain to write. Ignore mistakes – they can be fixed in the editing phase.
‘Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way’ Ray Bradbury
- Prioritise your writing
Gandhi once said, ‘Action expresses priorities. Our lives are full of competing priorities - if writing falls off the end of our ‘to-do’ lists it just won’t happen.
According to Darren Hardy, author of The Compound Effect, it is the small things we do every day that change our lives. However, we don’t have to write for hours every day. I developed a 10minute writing method for the busy people in my writing tribes.
Write for 10 minute every day, with no editing, researching, or reviewing. It sounds crazy but check out the numbers. The average person writes at 40 words per minute.
40wpm x 10 minutes = 400 words
400 words x 7 days = 2800 words
…in 70 minutes, a week! Your 70 000word draft would be finished in less than 6 months.
5.Show up
Even if writing feels like walking through treacle - show up. We must exercise the creative side of our brain every day like any muscle.
If you turn up consistently and get those words down, however hard it is, your creative flow will come back. Don’t take my word for it - Maya Angelou says:
‘What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks…it might be just the most boring and awful stuff... When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’ Maya Angelou
…and a last bonus tip – boost your creativity – read, journal, free write, write in a garden or park. Feed your senses – that will boost your creativity.
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Nicole Johnston tell us a bit more about herself:
I help busy people write their books - either through ghostwriting or writing coaching.
I have a misspent youth in politics and government and had the chance to work with some amazing people including Gordon Brown and Kim Beazley. My PhD was brought to an abrupt halt because I re-discovered my passion for writing fiction and my brain simply refused to engage any longer with administrative law.
That was in 2005 and many and several manuscripts ago. Two of them ‘The Cabinet Maker’ and ‘Winter City’ are available on Amazon. My first crime fiction novel will be out later this year. My first non-fiction book 'How a Hashtag Changed the World', co-authored with Anna McAfee, will be launched on 10th September 2020.
For 20 years I’ve written professionally, ghostwriting for senior government ministers (in the UK and Australia), senior officials, third sector and corporate leaders and, in recent years, social media influencers. I have worked in senior positions with high profile, international organisations such as the World Bank, the Gates Foundation and WHO, using my writing and communications skills.
Unable to keep my love of writing to myself I have two free online writing tribes on Facebook where I share the information, knowledge and skills I’ve been lucky enough to pick up over the years. You’re very welcome to join me there for some encouragement to get your own books finished.
Feel free to contact me for a virtual coffee if you'd like to chat about your options. You can book here or find out more about what I do at www.writingtribe.com My direct email is nicole@writingtribe.com.
Following on from her brilliant webinar back in June 2020, this month in our Byte Expert's series we hear from Helen Francis, Co-Founder of Francis Literary Consultancy on her tips for submitting your manuscripts to the industry. Members can access her webinar on our website here. If you're not already a member and want access to this recording and loads of other benefits you can you can join Byte The Book from £36 a quarter here.
Firstly, the writing process can be a lonely one, so before you submit it’s worth finding your ‘community’. Byte the Book a great start! It’s also worth bonding with fellow writers – either forming your own writing group or joining an established one – so that you have other people to bounce ideas off. And read read read! It’s important to have a grasp of what’s out there in the book shops, and reading will feed your writing.
When it comes time to find an agent, do your research! Find agents who represent the same sort of books as the one you’re writing, and who also, ideally, represent authors that you admire.
Then tailor your covering letter to the specific agent (rather than writing a generic letter for all of the agents you’re trying). Talk about how much you love certain books on their list, and go into a bit of detail about why/what you loved. Talk in a conversational, professional way about your own novel. Try to have comparisons so an agent has a sense of where you’d sit in the market – it’s worth giving this a bit of thought, and finding comparison books that are contemporary and that have been successful! But don’t worry too much about the finding something really pithy – you don’t need to land, ‘It’s JANE EYRE meets Queer Eye’, etc, unless something spot on occurs! Make it clear that you’re taking your writing seriously – if you’re in a writing group, or have done a creative writing qualification/course, or have had a professional edit done, definitely mention that, and go into a bit of detail about what you gained from it. It’s also worth while talking a little bit about why you wrote the book you wrote – including a bit of personal background will make you more personable and immediate.
Keep the synopsis brief and succinct (no more than a page) – and again, aim for a conversational but professional tone, it doesn’t need to be incredibly formal. Don’t get bogged down in the nuances of plot and subplot – try to stick to the main points and themes of the book. Sometimes getting someone else to read and edit for you can be helpful here, as it’s hard to summarise one’s own work. Of course, exact requirements vary from agent to agent, so again, look at the website of your intended recipient and see if they give specific guidelines.
Keep it straightforward! Don’t try to be too quirky or do/say something unusual that will make you stand out from the pack. Of course, there are no hard and fast rules and you might be lucky/hit the nail on the head with a joke. But I’ve had lots of anecdotes from agents about slightly ‘kooky’ things authors have done – sent gifts, flattered their appearance from the photographs on their websites, etc, and it generally doesn’t land well.
Keep going in the face of rejection! It’s tough but remain hopeful. Listen to any specific feedback from agents but simultaneously, be aware of the ‘brush off’ in the form of advice and don’t obsess about a passing comment. I’ve worked often with authors who have been told something by an agent that they’ve fixated on – a common one is, for example: ‘this sits between two stools – it’s both crime and literary fiction – and I’m afraid for that reason …’. An agent who loves your work will not be put off by a novel that it straddles genres.
Good luck!
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Helen Francis is the co-founder of Francis Literary Consultants. Francis Literary Consultants provide editorial and publishing services to writers, not only offering a variety of editorial services to help them improve their work, but also helping to connect them with members of the publishing industry. We're a father and daughter team: Helen has worked in all areas of publishing for 20 years, including 8 years as an editor at Faber and Faber and 2 commissioning fiction at Head of Zeus, and Richard is an academic, historical, novelist and non-fiction writer whose fourteenth book is about to be published. VISIT WEBSITE
Things began to fall apart: sudden, unforeseen disintegrations that were frankly alarming. It began on the top, that's to say the third floor, which is where I have my office.
The first thing that went was my desk. I'd got up moments earlier to go to the water cooler—I dread to think what might have happened otherwise. I turned around, plastic cup of water in hand, and as I did so the desk simply fell to pieces. My desktop computer came crashing down, too, of course. It came to rest, lopsided but intact, on the piled-up bits of desk.
Next to go, not a minute later, was the second-floor bathroom. Drawn by a fearful Ker-rash, we found it all asunder: jumbled fragments of glass, tile, chrome and porcelain. And before long it was the stairs, one flight after another folding up like a señorita's fan. Mercifully, we were all down in the parlour by then, wondering whom to call and could this be some type of earthquake.
It was Dean Nazario who got us out of the building. He's always had good instincts. Maybe he'd seen something like this in Vietnam? No sooner were we outside than, with a rumble like bowling balls, the whole building collapsed. Three stories levelled quick as you could sneeze.
We spent the rest of the day in group counselling: all 11 of us crowded into a conference room. There, Kate Cahill, a colleague I've always admired without really knowing—her office was, that's to say had been, in the basement—articulated a fear that, I think, several of us shared. If things could fall apart like that, why not people? Wasn't a person more fragile than a sink or staircase? The stresses and strains that hourly assail us, stretching us, mind and body, this way and that! What was to stop any one of us falling to pieces at any moment? 'Or relationships,' chipped in Jackie, our administrative assistant, who's been going through a divorce, but the counsellor cut her short. Wasn't it a blessing that we'd all got out unscathed?
The sun was going down as I headed for the parking lot. It had occurred to me to take a roundabout route, the risk of further trauma, but there again I was curious. And, well, what do you know? An entire new building had risen from the rubble! That's to say it was very like our old building and yet subtly altered. More windows for one thing. The paint a somewhat bluer shade of grey. And that bench on the front porch had acquired a nice set of cushions.
Of course I was taken aback, but once more curiosity got the better. It occurred to me that I might venture inside; the place seemed perfectly solid. Having cast hasty glances to ensure I was unobserved, I eased open the front door. By the light of evening, the parlour was somehow cosier. The stairs seemed to have grown a little steeper, the ceilings a few inches higher. The bathroom felt more spacious, too, with a different, more elegant style of faucet. I took the opportunity to wash my hands, which is never a bad idea.
The dimensions of my top-floor office had likewise been altered, and the furniture re-arranged. My desk now stood against the far window. It seemed much the same desk but, on sitting down, I found that my knees slid more snugly beneath. Not uncomfortably so: a pleasing snugness. And, looking about myself, at the filing cabinets and the poster board, it struck me that I actually preferred the new layout.
The desktop computer sat squarely back in place. On a whim, I fired it up. That computer had been working more slowly by the day, but now—Bingo!—it started like it had just been installed. Everything flows, I thought to myself, and then I tried it aloud. "Everything flows. Things fall apart—sometimes it's gradual, other times sudden—but only to reconfigure themselves. They shift, yes, but then they pull themselves back together, taking a new shape, perhaps, in the process. Change doesn't need to be a bad thing. Why, there's nothing to fear but..."
Greatly reassured by these and other simple truths, I fell to catching up on the day's emails.
The story first appeared on Cafe Irreal in Spring 2020
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Paul Blaney wears a variety of hats. His main vocation is as a fiction writer but he also works as a freelance journalist, a teacher, editor, and publisher. Born and raised in London, he has lived and worked in Lisbon, Hong Kong, and Eugene, Oregon, and now lives in Easton, PA. Recent publications include Handover, a novella set in Hong Kong, and The Anchoress, another novella whose main protagonist locks herself in her walk-in closet and won't come out. In 2015 Paul's first novel, Mister Spoonface, was published. The book explores what it means to be a father in an era of artificial reproduction. His two most recent novels are Crown of Thorns, the story of a 21st-century messiah, and Jardin des Animaux, which features wild animals, tunnels and love in a time of civil war
