Largesse…
As a reader, I love descriptive narrative. I welcome the chance to create an image in my mind with the author’s words.
Rosamunde Pilcher springs to mind:
‘As usual, Elfrida was the first downstairs. At the turn of the stair she threw back the curtains (a marvellously grand threadbare pair she had bought in the market in Buckly) and gazed out at the day. Actually it was night because it was still dark, but it had stopped snowing and by the light of the street lamp she could see the garden, all shape and form obliterated. Bushes and trees dropped under the weight of the snow and shrubs, pillowed, had lost all identity. It was still and quiet.’ Winter Solstice. The description is so plain, so perfectly understated, so very comforting. It is why Pilcher will always be a number one favourite.



My latest guest was born of academia, wanted to be a cat burglar, got high through the seventies (one is desperate to ask was it good?) hates diets but has never ever had a surfeit of life and in addition writes killingly observant blogs on the world of writing. Not only that, her latest book, Food Of Love, is amongst other things an homage to chocolate.