Anne Tyler: Literary Heroine

The aim of Bookdiva is to bring women who love books together, and highlight books that women might want to read.

I’ve written before about …

Is romantic fiction undervalued?

lt would be all too easy to satirise the Romantic Novelists’ Association Awards (RoNAs). When I’d traipsed through central London to One Whitehall Place – …

Sport stories

If you were searching for a pastime that was the opposite of reading, you might well hit on sport. Burying your nose in a book …

Literary Resolutions

“Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions”, wrote Mark Twain in Nevada’s Territorial Enterprise on January 1, 1863. “Next week you can …

Demystifying writing

How does a novel happen?

In theory, it is a pretty simple process. First find something to say. Then – to paraphrase Coleridge – put …

The Reluctant Re-Reader

I have always found the desire to re-read novels bewildering. I do it, obviously. I can’t deny that it’s a pleasurable and fruitful exercise. But …

Writing changes children’s lives

I’ve been pretty rubbish with literary festivals this year, thanks to a combination of a wedding, no money and erratic organisational skills. I didn’t squat …

Novel depravity

Forget the liberation of Syria. London riots, begone. The news story that has really got book lovers up in arms over the past couple of …

Should authors be shadows or stars?

I remember the day I first searched for Dorothy Dunnett online. Not Googled, note, for these were the days before the G-verb, when trawling the …

Reading inside the echo chamber

Like most people, I like to imagine that I am utterly unique. A true original. An anti-sheep, a lone wolf; a blazer of trails rather …

The stigma of extravagant imagination

When we are young, the world is a magical place. Anything can happen: new, frightening and inexplicable events pepper our infant days. Monsters, fairies, wizards …

Is there such a thing as a female book?

I was sixteen when I read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway for the first time, the first of her novels I had tried. I loved it …

I’ve started so I’ll finish

You choose your partner carefully: because you know they’re your type, because they have a good reputation, because they’ve been recommended by a friend, or …

Libraries need librarians

I kicked off this month with a healthy dose of hypocrisy.

February 5th was Save our Libraries day, a grassroots movement where people across the …

Turning over a new leaf

‘Read more books’. It’s a staple New Year’s resolution, and one that was all over Twitter come January 1st. Of course, it’s unlikely to be …