I’ve never knowingly seen in action how a book becomes a word-of-mouth best-seller – the dream of all writers whose books are not (yet) advertised on 10-foot-high billboards by their publishers. So I was intrigued when I first became aware of the insistent whispering and tweeting about Lissa Evans’ Second World War novel, Crooked Heart. […]
Historia Interviews : Kate Worsley, Debut Crown Winner 2014
After being awarded this year’s HWA Debut Crown award at the Harrogate History Festival in October, Kate took part in panels and interviews to talk about the passion that made her write a book set in Essex and at sea. First, a quick crib-sheet The plot: The book interweaves the stories of Luke and of […]
The Vikings are Coming!
Vikings invaded Harrogate on the evening of Thursday 23 October and, for an hour or so, stomped around the genteel furniture shops and posh kitchen emporia of northern England’s happiest city. In their mail, shields and helmets, carrying burning torches in the dark, they looked quite scary. They drew crowds of children and adults with […]
The Cello from the Trenches
Of all the tales told during this year’s centenary commemoration of the First World War, the most thought-provoking, for me, is the story behind this box. At first sight, it’s just an oblong box made of rough old wood – an ammunition box painted with the colours of the Royal Sussex Fusilliers regiment. But open […]
Irving Finkel and the Ark
In the year 1872, George Smith, a British Museum assistant, astounded the world by discovering the story of the Flood – much the same as that in the Book of Genesis, but older – inscribed on a cuneiform tablet made of clay that had recently been excavated at Nineveh in Mesopotamia. So excited was Smith […]