Justin Cartwright giveaway

Justin Cartwright has written seven novels;  he's  a winner of the Whitbread Novel Award and  he's been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. 


His latest novel, Other People's Money is a darkly comic tale of a private banking family in trouble. It's both a subtle thriller and an acutely defined portrait of a world and a class.

So it's a special treat that on 7th June at 7.30 pm Justin Cartwrigth will be appearing at England's Lane Books. The event costs £5-00 but I am thrilled to be able tell you that I have two tickets to give away!

All you have to do is to go on England's Lane Books twitter page and follow them. Mention Justin Cartwright with a hashtag (#JustinCartwright) in your Tweet to them (@elbookshop) and say you'd like to come and meet this great author!

Once I've pulled a name out of my imaginary hat, I'll announce the winner here and on Twitter.

Good luck!

End of a Beautiful Relationship or How John Lewis Is No Longer My Favourite Store

A couple of days ago I bought some kitchen stuff from the John Lewis web site. The next day I received an email saying, 'Your order has now been cancelled. You do not need to take any further action.' I was puzzled; I wanted the goods. There was a number to call.

John Lewis card was the first ever store card I applied for a few months after I moved to the UK. I remember it well. It was after my second interview at the BBC Monitoring Service in Caversham when I was offered the job and had signed the contract. The salary seemed astronomical to me, so on that same afternoon I skipped and hopped into Heelas in the centre of Reading and opened an account with them.

John Lewis has other significant memories for me too; it was the favourite store of a dear friend who tragically died of cervical cancer. She was only 35 when she finally succumbed after three years of suffering. She left three small boys behind. We'd got to know each other through the Navy and often lived in different parts of the country. But whenever we met up, a trip to the nearest John Lewis was always on the agenda. The men would look after the children and we'd spend a day talking and shopping. She was such an avid John Lewis customer, her husband joked that she kept a small private warehouse for them at home, because there were always bags of stuff ready to go back to the store.

The reason I'm telling you all this is that when I phoned the number it turned out to be John Lewis Financial Services. They told me the reason my order was cancelled was because my account had been closed. 'You owe us money,' a tired-sounding woman told me.
I gasped, 'What?'
The woman at the other end sighed loudly. I got the feeling she'd heard it all before. I tried to explain that I had no idea I owed them money and thought I'd paid the account in full each month. She looked at her records. The statements hadn't reached me since January.
'January! And you didn't try to contact me?'
'The letters were returned from your address so we don't resend them after a while.'
But after she checked, the address they had was correct. What's more, they had my email and my telephone number.
I repeated, 'You didn't try to contact me?'

I admit that not paying the account for items that I'd bought for the new flat was my fault. However, I pay things on statement, so if I don't get one I forget. I tried to say all this to the woman but she wasn't interested. In the end I paid the amount owing and asked if I now could use my card again.
'No, your account is closed.'
'What?'
'You have to wait a few months and then reapply for a new card.'

It may sound silly, but I'm really upset about this. First of all the woman's attitude; it was obvious she thought I was lying all through the conversation. I worked out that I've had a John Lewis account for 27 years. I'd never before had a problem with the account, something the Financial Services must have on record.

But I don't want to reapply for a card - I really don't even want to buy anything from John Lewis ever again. Yet, I feel a real connection to the store - not only because of all the time I've been their customer, but also because of my dear friend. I know I'm being too emotional about this, but I thought I had a relationship with John Lewis. I felt I was that woman in the red dress in their advert, having the store as part of every stage of my life. Now I feel I've received a 'decree absolute'.  It's as if they've told me they never loved me in the first place.

My list of summer reads, or books to take on holiday

It's that time of the year when we're all beginning to think about our summer holidays. (While the rain beats down the windows behind my desk...) I usually leave the book buying to the last minute, but this time, since I'm now a professional bookseller, I thought I'd get a head start.

The first novel on my list is set in LA. The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard tells the story of a 17-year-old girl who travels from London to Venice Beach to attend her mother's funeral. Amongst her late mother's possessions she finds a suitcase full of love letters and photographs of the men her mother had known.  She decides to return each letter to its sender. It sounds like a brilliant read - just what's needed on a beach holiday!

Stop press: Anna Stothard is coming to talk about this book at England's Lane Books on 14 June. Details of the event can be found here.

I am a self-confessed Mad Men addict. So much so that my current phone ringtone is the theme tune from the cult HBO TV series. It doesn't make me answer my phone any quicker, and I sometimes find myself listening to the tune forgetting to answer all together - but I digress. When I saw that Rona Jaffe's The Very Best of Everything was written in the 1950's and tells a story of four women working in a Manhattan typing pool very similar to the one in the offices of Stirling Cooper, I had to get the book. The novel was regarded as scandalous when it came out in 1958, and is even mentioned in the show. So as the saying goes, if you liked Mad Men, you'll love....I cannot wait to read this book.

My next recommendation is a crime thriller. I do love a good Scandi crime book on holiday (not that I'm at all biased...) and The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler is famed for being just that. The story behind the writers of this book is almost as intriguing as the book itself: for a long time no-one in Sweden knew who Kepler was, until one persistent reporter found that behind the best-selling novel was in fact a married couple, Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril. I will be reviewing this book on my other site.

Next on my list is a novel by Tim Pears. I saw Pears, to me previously unknown writer, read from his book, Landed, at Shoreditch Literary Salon last week. Landed is a story of a man's life, narrated by him in some point in the future. It's an interesting method to use; while the story unravels in the 1980's the future world of the narrator is unknown to us. The bit that Tim read to us at Shoreditch Salon was also very funny so I'm really looking forward to getting to know this writer's work.

A book I'd saved for my holiday but couldn't resist starting is Lucky Break by Esther Freud. This is a sad and funny book which follows a group of young actors through drama school and onto their first successes and failures. Esther started out as an actress herself, so the book has an authentic feel. I'm really enjoying it so far.

Maggie O'Farrell is an author I, for some strange reason, have never read. When I heard her read from her latest novel, The Hand That Held Mine, I became completely smitten by her writing. The novel starts with a young girl, who, yearning for a more exciting life, leaves her genteel parents in the country and moves to bohemian Soho in post-war London. It's a story of what it is to be an artist and a mother, and if the few passages which O'Farrell read at Shoreditch are anything to go by, this is a must read of the summer.

Gerard Woodward has long been a favourite writer of mine. His brilliant Booker listed novel, I'll Go to Bed at Noon, was funny and disturbing portrait of a family coping with alcohol abuse. So I am really looking forward to reading his latest book to come out in paperback, Nourishment. This is an imaginative wartime tale of a woman whose children are evacuated, her husband is a prisoner of war and she's forced to live with her irascible mother while - to help the war effort - working at a London gelatine factory. When she receives a letter from Donald asking for a dirty letter, by return post, she's aghast but out a marital duty and with the help of book shops, libraries and public conveniences, decides to master the language of carnal desire. Again, I cannot wait to read this book!

Last but not least I am going to recommend a book of novellas by an old master, Stefan Zweig, an author who took his own life in 1942 at the age of 61, cutting his writing career tragically short. A couple of years ago for the Babington Book club I chose his novel The Post Office Girl, published post-humously, and fell in love with his writing. This collection of Selected Stories includes his most powerful novellas. It's the perfect book to have handy for a long journey, when you can dip in and out of Zweig's captivating world.

I hope you like my recommendations and tell me what you think. Happy reading!

My favourite opera: Tosca by Giacomo Puccini

I cannot even remember the first time I saw Tosca on stage – but I do remember the first time I heard Maria Callas sing Vissi D’arte, my very favourite aria. My mother loves Callas and has several of her records (vinyls!). When my sister and I were younger, we’d often make a show of putting our fingers into our ears, ‘No caterwauling!’. But once when I was about ten or so and she listened to her favourite soprano sing I saw she was crying. I had no idea what Maria Callas was singing about, but suddenly I too felt tears well up inside me.

And now it really doesn’t matter what opera it is, or what the subject matter is - as soon as a soprano, or a tenor, reaches certain notes, tears start to roll down my face. Nothing gets me going as much as when Tosca sings Vissi D'arte. In the aria she's being blackmailed by a powerful and ruthless politician, the brilliantly named Scarpia, and sings about the cruelty of fate.

CALLAS - VISSI D'ARTE by birdy66

I lived for my art, I lived for love,

I never did harm to a living soul!

***

why, why, o Lord,

why do you reward me thus?

Tosca sees herself as just a simple singer in love with a painter, Mario Cavaradossi, who gets into a political entanglement which leads to his arrest, torture and eventual murder. But in truth Tosca is also famous and it's her jealousy together with her beauty which are her downfall. 

Each time I see this opera - or even listen to it - I am full of hope for a better ending where Tosca blissfully walks into the sunset together with her beloved Mario. Instead she makes one of the most spectacular exits in the history of opera: she commits suicide by jumping off the embattlements where she'd just witnessed her beloved getting executed by Scarpia's men. Tosca's scream at the end of any performance of the opera stays with me for days, even weeks afterwards.

What's your favourite opera?

Pappa's Girl: Jävla Finnar

It was exactly four weeks after our move to Rinkeby in Sweden in the autumn of 1971, when Pappa took me to Stockholm Stadium to see Finland play Sweden. I’d not been to an ice-hockey match since Ilves played Tappara in the Jäähalli in Tampere the previous winter. My team lost to their local rivals. The boys at school who wore the black and orange Tappara scarves laughed at me. But I didn’t give up my green and blue Ilves scarf just because of one game.

In Sweden nobody knew of the Finnish league, but this annual tournament was a question of pride for the two countries. Pappa had been given the tickets by his boss in the factory because he couldn’t go himself.

‘You have no idea how expensive these seats are,’ he said. ‘And how difficult to get hold of,’ he continued. He was talking to Anja. ‘And I’m not going to waste them on a person who ruins beautiful new sofas.’

My sister Anja just shrugged her shoulders. ‘It wasn’t me,’ she said, and looked down at her feet. A few days ago Pappa had found a cigarette burn on one of the velour cushions. I looked at Anja and wondered how she could be so brave. If Pappa found out about the party she had in the flat he’d hit the roof.

‘What did you say?’ Pappa said, taking hold of Anja’s arm.

‘Ouch, you’re hurting me!’ Anja freed herself and ran out of the hall.

‘Hadn’t you better be leaving?’ Mamma said.

I was very proud to be taken by Pappa to the match instead of Anja. In Tampere I went to ice-hockey matches with my friend, Kaija. We both played on the ice-rink two blocks from our flat with the boys from our school. To be allowed to play, we had to wait till there weren’t enough boys to make up a team. One boy, Jussi, who was in my class and had curly brown hair and short stumpy legs, shouted, ‘Do your figure skating in the corner, girlies!’ He had all the latest gear, fancy leather gloves much too large for his hands, pads for his knees and a shiny new stick, which he rolled around with one gloved hand often dropping it with a bang on the ice. Kaija sat next to Jussi in class and said he was really sweet, but she only said that because she had a crush on him, had had for ages. They lived close to each other too, and often walked home together. She’d told me that if there were no other boys around Jussi would hold her hand. Kaija was a short girl with round face and straight thin hair. Pappa called us ‘Pitkä ja Pätkä’ after a Finnish version of Laurel and Hardy. Getting ready for the match I decided to write to Kaija about it later that evening. I wondered who her new best friend might now be. I’d received one letter from her but she said nothing about school in it. It was already October so she must have found someone by now. I wished Kaija would be coming to see Finland play Sweden with me.

The match was played in the evening in the large stadium in the centre of Stockholm. We wore our warm coats and I put on my Ilves scarf and hat.

‘There’ll be lots of people but very few Finns, so best keep together, OK?’ Pappa said as we parked the new Volvo. Pappa had washed it earlier that morning and its bonnet gleamed under the streetlights. I turned to look at the dark, round building in front of me. There were people hurrying towards it. We were late. Pappa took my hand and we started running. He looked at the tickets and then up at the signs on doors. I held tightly onto Pappa’s hand when we walked up steps and saw the vast ice rink in front of us.  People had to stand up to let us in, we were right in the middle of the row.

‘Tack, tack,’ Pappa said and I smiled. But nobody looked directly at us. They just stared at the rink in front of them.

The players were already out warming up. They smashed the bucks against the solid white edges, snapping their sticks fast and hard.

‘There’s Harri Linnonmaa, look, number 75!’ Pappa said pointing at a player in blue and white with a picture of a lion on his chest. ‘The Finnish Lions will beat the Swedish wimpy white-bread men,’ he whispered into my ear when the players skated up to the side and disappeared underneath us. Soon after they all came out again in a line and stopped dead when the Swedish national anthem was played over the Tannoy. Everybody stood up. Pappa and I were the only people not singing. After the Swedish anthem I felt awkward knowing the words to ‘Our Land’, but Pappa sang loudly, clearly pronouncing each Finnish word.

When the Finnish national anthem was over, the game started with the two attackers fighting for the puck in the middle of the rink. Pappa rubbed his hands together and muttered, ‘C’mon Finnish Lions!’

The Swedish players wore their blue and yellow shirts with an emblem of three crowns on them. They all had very blonde, long hair which escaped from underneath their helmets. Pappa had told me the crowns represented the three monarchies Sweden had once ruled.

‘Now they don’t even dare take part in wars, let alone win them, the cowards!’ he’d said. He told me Finns had earned their emblem through having to fight for their independence. ‘Like lions we are fearless and proud,’ he said.

‘I think we’ll win, Lissu, because the Swedes are scared,’ Pappa now said. ‘Finland won the first leg of the tournament in Helsinki. If only they can hold until half time, they’ll win.’ He smiled and nudged me with his elbow.

The whole of the stadium exploded when the first goal came. But Pappa and I sat still. By the end of the second period, Finland was 9 goals down and Pappa had an Elefanten beer in the dark, cold hall downstairs. People around us were standing in groups laughing and smoking. They were mostly Swedish men, like my father drinking beer.

‘Can I have a tunnbrödsrulle Pappa?’ I said. He looked at me and without saying a word gave me the money. I ran to a food stall and back again as quickly as I could. Thankfully Pappa was still there when I came back. He’d finished his beer and the bell was sounding for the start of the third period.

‘Never mind,’ Pappa said when we sat down again, ‘We have time to come back.’

But it got worse. Time after time Finnish players were sent to the sin bin, leaving the Swedish blondes free to score more goals. Three more times the buck ended up in the Finnish net. The Swedish players hugged each other and the crowd cheered. Pappa said nothing. The Finnish goalkeeper hung his head, while his teammates got angry with the Swedish players. Yet another Finn was sent to the sin bin. At one time there were two Lions sitting there, holding their sticks between their knees, staring ahead at the terrible result on the board opposite them.

‘Let’s go,’ Pappa said suddenly. The game wasn’t finished yet and people looked angrily at us when they had to move up from their seats. One man with a huge belly and a round face said, ‘Jävla Finnar’ when I passed. I didn’t look at him.

The dark streets outside were completely empty. We heard another loud cheer rise up from the vast stadium. Pappa walked fast to the car and quickly started the engine. He was quiet all the way home. When we pulled into the car park outside our block of flats I said, ‘Can we go again?’

Pappa looked at me and said, ‘No.’

This is an excerpt from my novel Pappa's Girl. If you liked the story, you can find more here.

Finland are ice hockey world champions!

The silveware. Picture YLE

Growing up in Tampere I was an avid follower of ice hockey. My team, Ilves, were Finnish champions and I saw many matches in the newly built jäähalli. 

Since moving here, I've lost touch with the game, but could not miss the wonderful news that Finland, after first beating Russia in the semi-finals were going to play Sweden - their old arch rivals - in the world championship finals.

It didn't start well; Sweden took the lead in the 28th minute. Here we go, I thought. In the days when I used to follow the game, Finns were famed for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Especially when playing against Sweden, or The Three Crowns, the players never failed to disappoint. I had to witness one crucial match with my father in Stockholm where we lost 13-0 to the Three Crowns.

But last night The Lions, as Finns call themselves, fought on. They have a lucky break when a Swede misses our goal by a whisker in the 39th minute. They go on to equalise just seconds before the end of the 2nd period.

Finland wins the face-off at the start of the 3rd period and take control of the game. Second and third goals come in quick succession. At 3-1 the commentators start to talk about winning the championships. Sweden crumbles. Three minutes from the end the Lions score again, making the it 4-1, and just a minute later there's another goal for Finland. The match ends at 6-1 when the Lions steal another goal just under a minute before full-time.

Picture Tomi Hänninen

Picture Tomi Hänninen

What a match - what champions!

Picture Tomi Hänninen 

Eurovision 2011 with Twitter

First time the Englishman and I watched Eurovision after I moved to Britain was when I was heavily pregnant with our first child. Because I was too tired to go out to the pub on a Saturday night with friends, we spent the night in front of the TV instead, marvelling at the bad costumes and terrible songs.

That was in the old days when Norway and Finland fought hard for the last place with it's 'nil point', and when the whole counting process was so long-winded people lost the will to live.  (You think it takes a long time now...!) Of course in Finland and Sweden people took the whole event much more seriously then and each country really wanted to win. Abba's Waterloo was fresh in my memory and the song and artist who came first were still guaranteed a successful European career afterwards. And everyone sang in their native language and there was no East European block voting...

Of course the Englishman thought it was the naffest thing you could do, watch Eurovision in 1987, but for some reason after that first time it became a family tradition to each year watch this European spectacle. 

This year, for the first time, we both sat in front of the TV with the addition of our Macs on our laps sending Tweets and laughing together at other people's comments on Twitter. I'm sure TweetDeck was close to crashing during the performance by Moldova. Some hats...

Moldova's contribution to this years' Eurovision song contest

The Englishman said afterwards he can't remember when he laughed so much while watching Eurovision. 

So thank you to all my Twitter friends for a fantastic night of Twittervision. (And Graham Norton was very funny too - I nearly didn't miss Terry at all). 

Tampere in Conde Nast Traveller

Hämeensilta, Tampere

I couldn't believe it when a friend today told me there was an article in the latest Conde Nast Traveller about my home town, Tampere. Had Manse, (as the locals call it) an industrial city in the centre of Finland, suddenly become trendy? Imagine if FT's How to Spend it recommended you'd take a long weekend in Doncaster. (Forgive me if it's your home town - I have nothing against Doncaster...)

I was even more bowled over when I saw it was a 4-page feature, lauding the allure of the old restored industrial factory buildings, where during the war my grandfather worked making anti-tank guns, or the Tammerkoski rapids, which I was afraid I'd fall into when I was little.

Next I found tears welling up in my eyes when the author, Jonathan Bastable, described the haunting frescos inside Tampere Cathedral. As a child I spent many a boring sermon staring at the image of Hugo Simberg's Wounded Angel wondering exactly how the creature had been hurt. Twenty years later it was at this same church that I married my Englishman.

The Wounded Angel by Hugo Simberg - picture Wikipedia

But the best part of this brilliant piece on Tampere was the last paragraph where Bastable spends a quiet moment eating 'surely the most delicious doughnuts in all Scandinavia' (YES!) by Pyynikki observation tower.

Pyynikki observation tower

'Through the tall straight trunks of trees I could glimpse the two vast lakes on which the town below has always depended on for its prosperity, Näsijärvi to the left of me, Pyhäjärvi to the right. For a moment I forgot I was in populous, post-industrial Manse, and felt instead that I was alone on a fir-covered islet, in the midst of a still northern sea.'

Näsijärvi

Sunset over Pyhäjärvi

I can't wait to visit Tampere again this summer. I must remember to go and have one of those excellent doughnuts and admire the view.

The London Number 13 Bus

Stan Butler (Reg Varney) and Jack Harper (Bob Grant). Picture from Elstree Calling

Before I met my husband I believed Englishmen to be boring. The image of England I had came from the TV series broadcast in Finland in the 1970's, mainly from 'On the Buses'.

The series was so popular in Finland that one of the main characters, the forever flirty Jack, played by Bob Grant, made an ad for Finnish TV for liquorice sweets called Lontoo rae.



For those of you who are too young (huh, huh), the 1970's comedy series, 'On the Buses' was based around a bus driver and his conductor and filmed on the number 13 double decker. It was sold to several foreign countries and, for all I know, old episodes of it are still run in Finland.

Picture from Elstree Calling

An incident a few weeks ago made me think how strange life is: not only am I now married to an Englishman, but I also take the number 13 bus to town almost every day.

One day the bus stopped in traffic, facing another in the middle of Oxford Street. A group of tourists in the other bus started excitedly aiming their iPhones at me. I looked around - I was alone on the top floor. Fame at last? For what, though? It took me a while to understand the tourists' excitement: it wasn't the sight of me sitting at the front - what they were pointing at was the number of my bus - 13. 

Stan and his friends' fame from On The Busses lives on and I reserve my opinion on how boring Englishmen are...

House hunting in London

We were going to start our 'real life' search for a new home in North London by going to an open house viewing of a flat nearby. But when we are about to leave we realise there's no house number on the ad. Husband phones the estate agent. Our first mistake: the guy at the other end is so obnoxious that Husband ends the conversation well before it even begins. 'Don't bother,' he says. (He doesn't suffer fools gladly.)

We decide to wander off towards the area where we might want to live instead, only to be distracted by the unmistakeable smell of a BBQ coming from a nice-looking pub. After a delicious lunch with a glass of wine we're more willing to see a few spotty estate agents.

Surprise, surprise: What we are looking for is exactly what everyone else wants too. It seems demand in our corner of the market far outstrips supply.

And I naively thought the housing market was in a recession.

'Not in this part of London,' says a person in a pinstripe suit. (Dark suit in this heat?)

'Right.' I try to avoid looking at Husband. We decide to leave the hunt for a home for another week.

Where are Kirstie and Phil when you need them?

Angry Birds and Moomintrolls

When I was in Finland this spring, a friend of mine asked if I'd ever heard of Angry Birds. I had no idea what she was talking about. When she told me it was a computer game I was even more surprised: I didn't think she played them, let alone knew the names of such games.

'It's a world-wide success, you know, ' she said.

I just didn't know what to say - during the thirty or so years we'd known each other I'd never discussed computers with her, let alone games to play on them.

'It's Finnish,' she said proudly.

Then she told me the whole story of this addictive game where, using a touch screen you fire wingless birds as bombs into a fortified camp of evil pigs. Jaakko Iisalo, a games designer, came up with the design and idea of Angry Birds when bored during a business conference. The company, Rovio Mobile, which developed the software and has since sold 12 million copies of the game, has been lauded in Finland as 'The New Nokia'.

I admit to now being one of the addicts of this game. It's another brilliant way of whiling away hours of writing time. (I'm always on the look-out for new ways to procrastinate.)

But I was also struck by the similarities between the design of the characters and that of the other Finnish graphic cartoon classics, the Moomintrolls. The simple and graceful characters have something so uniquely human about them and combined with the wry humour of Jansson's writing you cannot fail to love the Moomins. Angry Birds don't exactly do the same, I agree, still I'm sure if Tove Jansson was alive now she'd be developing a Moomintroll game. (Don't tell me there already is one in existence?)

Moomintroll and Snufkin by Tove Jansson

I've been a fan of the Moomins forever - I grew up reading Tove Jansson's books and watching the cartoons on TV. Now I am addicted to buying all Moomin related merchandise - from mugs to cartoon strips. I'm not sure I will be buying any Angry Birds mugs, but you never know they might be the classic of the next generation.

My mug collection

The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip - Volume Five

Shireen Jilla at West End Lane Books

The cover of Shireen Jilla's debut novel, Exiled, was what first attracted me to the book. The black and white view of a typical New York brownstones spoke to me in its simplicity, yet the red lettering implied of something sinister.

Last night when I met Shireen Jilla (dressed in smart New York style in a black sleeveless shirt-dress and high heeled nude shoes) at West End Lane Books she told me she had to fight hard to keep the understated design. Here's a debut novelist who knows her market and has guts, I thought.

Exiled is Jilla's third complete novel, and like so many new authors, she too had to wait, and wait, and yet wait some more, before she got her first book published. 'Patience is the most important quality a novelist can have,' she says.

Shireen Jilla

Exiled is a tightly knit, fast paced book that you just cannot put down. (I speak from experience) It tells the story of Anna, who together with her American diplomat husband, Jessie, and their 4-year-old son move to New York. But her 'romantic dream turns into a dark battle' when disaster after disaster falls upon her. The reason for her unhappiness isn't just the cultural difference between London and New York (where 4-year-olds can be 'under-scheduled' and a case of head lice is 'an infestation on the community'). It's also the overpowering presence of Anna's immaculate Upper East Side mother-in-law, 'the thinnest person I had seen who didn't have cancer'. As the plot thickens Nancy comes to play a 'crucial and destructive part' in Anna's demise.

Due to her journalistic background (she works for The Standard and The Times), Shireen Jilla places great importance on the editing process. 'I have no qualms about cutting out whole passages.' In fact the first draft of Exiled included another whole plot stream where the protagonist, Anna, back in England, reflects back to her New York life. 'All the action was in New York,' Jilla reflects. Removing those paragraphs caused a re-write, which in turn made the novel such a quick and enticing read.

Signed copies of Shireen Jilla's debut novel, Exiled are now available at West End Lane Books and England's Lane Books, at £12.00.

Shiren Jilla is also going to be appearing at The Telegraph Hay Festival on Tuesday 31st May 2011.

Walk in London: Regent's Park

Amazingly before yesterday, I'd never walked through Regent's Park. I'd driven through there many a time, but had never strolled along the canal. So on Sunday instead of taking the terrier to our usual haunt, Hampstead Heath, we drove further into the centre of London.

One end of The Boating Lake

Terrier appreciation society

Canal boat approaching...

....and departing

You wouldn't believe on top of this bridge there's busy traffic

Same bridge

Regent's Canal

Terrier again

OK, it wasn't that busy on the bridge after all...

View of the Canal from the bridge

London cab on the Outer Circle

It's amazing to think that there is such a vast green space in central London, and that this is just one of the many parks in this great city. On a day like yesterday it was bliss walking along the canal - even dodging the odd runner and cyclist, it felt as if we had the place to ourselves.

What's the point of the countryside again? (Just joking...)

Royal Wedding Tea

I promise this will be my last post on the subject of That Wedding, but I wanted to share with you pictures of the lovely baking Daughter did for us on the day.

Strawberry and British flag cup cakes

There was strawberry jam inside....

My 'tea' was coffee - in my Harvey Nichols Royal Wedding mug

Silver Jubilee mug from 1977

Doesn't the Queen look young?

Pink champagne seemed appropriate

Coffe swirl cake made by Son's girlfriend

We also had home baked scones and a tin of Kate & Wills Royal shortbread. 

An optimistic terrier was also in attendance.