Jet setting

I’m off for a quick weekend in New York (as one does).  It’s part of this “ex-pat” life that you get used to hopping on and off planes to go all sorts of places in too short a time.  But it’s my father’s birthday weekend, and...

And Now for Something Completely Different

Not about writing.  About music.I’ve played the violin since I was five, and have played in orchestras forever.  First, school chamber groups (we all know what they sound like: 25 little kids squeaking their way through “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star), then...

Report from the Front (or You Never Know…)

One of the wonderful perks of doing my tour is that I get to travel around Britain by train.  I love trains.  I find them hopelessly romantic (but then again I would, wouldn’t I?).  They seem to transport me not just from place to place but somehow also from...

Book Clubbing

Regardless of whether you swing towards Oprah or Richard-and-Judy, the book club phenomenon is now firmly a part of our societies and I couldn’t be happier.  Book clubs provide a reason to rejoice.  They are one of the few signs around that people are looking...

A Rite of Passage

Yesterday I had my first book signing, and it was as you would expect it to be if you close your eyes and keep all those stories of non-famous on-the-road novelists in your head…..It was a busy chain bookstore in the busiest mall of a lovely suburban town about...