Blog in France

Yes, I know it should be Literary Lundi but Chris made this wonderful film of our llamas yesterday that I have to share with you.  Plus we’ve had Ruadhri home poorly for a week now and the rest of us have all had vague versions of what he’s got so...

If you’ve been to France, the chances are you’ve caught glimpses of beaver-like animals swimming in lakes or rivers, or grazing on banks or roadsides. These are ragondins, or coypus, or nutria. They have a variety of names so take your pick. They’re not native to France so why are...

The 41st Graphic Novel Festival starts today at Angoulême. I’ve wondered about going several times but it’s quite a drive, plus I’m not a particular bande dessinée (BD) fan. Ruadhri is – he’s accro to them as they say here (accro = short for accroché i.e. hooked on) but he’s...

It’s fair to say I’m pretty much obsessed with books, since I read, edit, write and review them. I read The Bookseller, the UK weekly magazine for people in the book producing industry, an its US counterpart, Publishers Weekly. I’ve got my finger firmly on the book world’s pulse. So...

January isn’t being nice at the moment. It’s raw and grey and all rather depressing. But rather than fall into the Slough of Despond (the only thing I can remember from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress despite studying at length in my English Lit course!) we roused ourselves for a spot...