Wisteria Jungle

I think quite a few Blippers will recognise where we called in for coffee and scones this morning. We sat in a jungle of Wisteria, but anything for the best coffee and scones around.




Continuing my comments on the Women’s Prize Shortlist for anyone interested.

The Marriage Portrait: Maggie O’Farrell

Sixteen year old Lucrezia is married off to Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, and on the first page it is related that she is convinced her husband plans to kill her. Set in 16th century Italian court life, a situation in which Lucrezia has to learn to make her way, I liked this a lot. However,  I can understand how some readers were not convinced by the way Lucrezia is portrayed. It also suffers from the fact that O’Farrell won the Women’s Prize a couple of years ago with Hamnet and this is perhaps not as good. If you like Maggie O’Farrell, if you like stories set in Renaissance Italy, you will enjoy this.


Fire Rush: Jacqueline Crooks

I can say very little about this, as it is the only one of the six books that I have not read. I have a copy and I also have it in audio form, but I could not get into it either way. It is written in a mixture of Jamaican Patois and Black British slang and there are lots of musical references. Maybe I did not try hard enough, as most people who have read it think it is brilliant. Certainly the way she talked last night about how she wrote the book, and how it was based on her own experience of 70s Caribbean music culture, was fascinating. I felt quite inspired to try the book again.

These sessions are very good. We get readings (by actors) and discussion with each author and then the two of them, with Kate Moss, have a general discussion, mainly based on questions put to them by viewers. The producers have cleverly put an established author with a relatively new author and the talk between the two is so positive and interesting. They have obviously read each other’s book and will ask their own questions and share experiences - really good to watch. (Sadly Kate Moss does not realise that her role is only as facilitator and just has to keep putting her own view ‘as an author’.)


Oh well - onto the final session.