Ysenda Maxtone Graham 
A Green and Pleasant Land: How England’s Gardeners Fought the Second World War, by Ursula Buchan – review
Here are some statistics about wartime fruit- and vegetable-growing in England which this book tells us. In 1942-3, there were 1,750,000 allotments, amounting to 100,000 acres, or an area the… Read more
Leaving Sussex
I read William Nicholson’s new novel in proof before Christmas. ‘The must-read book for 2013 for lovers of William Boyd and Sebastian Faulks,’ it said on the back. Well, I… Read more
Telling tales out of school
The difficult thing about writing a memoir is this: how do you avoid numbing the reader with endless thumbnail sketches of the hundreds of characters who have crossed your path?… Read more
As dark and heavy as plum pudding
Dressed up as a child-friendly, pocket-sized hardback, just the right size for a Christmas stocking and with a pretty front-cover illustration of two dear little children in a snowy fir… Read more
Keeping calm and carrying on
An ordinary woman, rather like yourself.’ These were Peter Fleming’s words when he commissioned Jan Struther to write what became her ‘Mrs Miniver’ columns for the Times. Critics complained then,… Read more
Radio insomnia
It’s 2.43 a.m. Unable to sleep, you reach out into the night for company: literally. Out goes your arm, towards the radio on the bedside table, and you grope for… Read more
There’s something about Mary
I like books which have their own linguistic microclimate. Fictional first-person narratives are where you tend to find these. The moment you step inside a good one, you enter a… Read more
A hymn to the organist
Some people swoon over film stars. I swoon over organists. Good organists, that is, not bad organists. Bad organists I refer to as ‘dominant males’, because the only two chords… Read more
Travel: Opened secret
Once, Avignon was hell to get to. Now it’s an easy train journey. Let Ysenda Maxtone Graham, who has known it for decades, show you around The interminable car journeys… Read more
Rather a cold fish
Published first novel (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) at the age of 59, Richard and Judy choice, won Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction; spent his whole career in… Read more
Revving up
The C of E’s pioneer women priests are waiting anxiously for their first female bishop Diocese by diocese, the Church of England is voting in favour of women becoming bishops.… Read more
The Golden Hour by William Nicholson
He’s got a winning formula, this writer, and he’s sticking to it. Set the action over seven days, in and around the Sussex town of Lewes, with occasional day trips… Read more
Textbook error
If young people don’t want to learn languages, it might be because the teaching materials are so drearily trendy Tonight’s homework: learn ‘Bonjour’, ‘Je m’appelle,’ ‘Comment t’appelles-tu?’ ‘Ça va?’ ‘Ça… Read more
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