All me to introduce myself

My first bookshop love affair
I first came across Arthur Probsthain, Oriental & African bookseller, in 1986. I was in London to visit the British Museum for the first time, and I was sixteen years old. It was a rainy day - somehow London always seems more Londony when it rains - and my heart gave a little flutter when I first spotted the bookshop's hanging sign. I was obsessed with Japanese prints, but no local bookstores stocked books on the subject, and it was back before the Internet took hold of us and provided the opportunity to buy the rarest of books from far-off places at the click of a mouse button. A small shop, with two rooms filled with dusty second-hand and new tomes, I stayed in there for what seemed

I am experiencing sudden raptures
I was quite taken aback by myself today. Ever since my books first came out, I've been so busy working on other projects that I haven't really had much time to sit back and take in what's been going on around me. The books have had great reviews, and I've been very happy about that, in the few seconds before falling asleep when I had a quiet moment to think about something other than my next paragraph. The signings have gone incredibly well, and for the duration of the car ride home I've been able to enjoy that great sense of achievement that comes with flogging piles of books to my poor unsuspecting victims... erm, I mean 'readers'. Even during the only break we had this year, when Ry

Doom and gloom, go zoom to the moon!
Anyone who's read any of my previous blog posts knows that I am not a floaty, fluffy, 'it's all sunshine and moonbeams' kinda gal when it comes to this writing malarkey... I'm a realist. I'm all for realism. What I'm not a great fan of is scaremongering codswallop. So, the publishing industry's going through changes... has that never happened before? Book sales are down and, apparently, the end of the physical book is in sight... well, we're in the middle of an economic recession... money spent on social drinking is down, but who's going to suggest that beer's about to become extinct? There are less people reading and buying books than ever before! Really? Considering the fact that in

Great expectations
"Are your books doing as well as you hoped they would?" I have been asked this question so many times, and I haven't once been able to answer it. I have no answer. In order for my books to do as well as I hoped, I'd have had to hope in the first place. I was told by a very dear friend, when I was sixteen years old, that there's no money to be made in writing about art. He'd been doing it for years, and was very well respected in the field... he knew what he was talking about. I listened to him, accepted that I would make no money, and continued regardless. Much later, another writer friend told me that I'd have more chance of being struck by lightning than becoming recognised for my gr

I still think of Cedric
On the subject of food again, I don't often talk about the fact that I'm a vegetarian. When the subject does come up, I'm usually asked how I came to be a veggie, and my answer is always the same... 'I once murdered a chicken.'The roots of my vegetarianism lie in the year 1972, in a village in southern Italy. I am half Italian (Calabrese to be exact), and my grandmother had a farm (like Old MacDonald). On that farm she had some goats... and chickens. She also had a granddaughter who, at the age of three, thought that chickens were cute and cuddly and handy during a game of cricket when no ball was available. Not realising my own strength, or that the heads of chickens are n