The husband-and-wife team behind Moro love simple food, preferably eaten in working men’s cafés. For their fantasy day of eating they head to the Moorish lands that inspire their cooking...
First breakfast
We discovered a special ful cart when visiting friends in Cairo. Ful is made from dried broad beans, cooked overnight in a cylindrical pot, then served warm in a little bowl.
Jon McGregor is an audacious writer. In an age where narrative in the most popular works of art often proceeds at a breakneck speed, he has chosen to defy this. Reservoir 13 (2017) is his first novel for thirteen years and like his debut novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (2002), it was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Reservoir 13 also won the Costa Novel Award for 2017. It managed this feat in spite of his use of the passive voice and the utter absence of dialogue in the novel.
Reservoir 13 begins with an apparent hook: a thirteen-year-old girl has gone missing in an unnamed Derbyshire village.
If you’ve ever wanted to spend the night in a Martello Tower erected to stop Napoleon landing on the Suffolk coast, or in a pink seaside villa that once belonged to author John Fowles, now is your chance.
Booking for the Landmark Trust’s five most popular properties – which include a miniature classical pavilion in Shropshire, a 13th-century castle in Warwickshire and a four-storey folly in Dorset – for the second half of 2019 opens to the public tomorrow. These renovated gems are some of the most startlingly quirky properties you could hope to rent.
Leïla Slimani’s second novel won the Prix Goncourt and became the most read book in France in 2016. Now translated by Sam Taylor, it is being marketed as this year’s Gone Girl.
Myriam and Paul are blissfully happy after the birth of their first child, but shortly afterwards “the clocklike perfection of the family mechanism jammed”. When Myriam, who is of North African descent, visits a childcare agency, she is assumed to be a prospective employee.
Imogen Hermes Gowar's historical romp, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock was only published a fortnight ago but is already riding high in the bestseller list.
I'll be talking about the book with Imogen at Waterstones Gower Street on Monday 5th March. Over a glass of wine, we'll also discuss the irresistible appeal of historical romps. Drinks are served from 6.30pm. Tickets available via the link below. All tickets, hallelujah, include wine.
Before Imogen Hermes Gowar was a writer, she worked at visitor services for the British Museum. There she came across a rare and hideous artefact, a mummified monkey stitched to the tail of a fish. Fascinated, she plunged into the story that became her first novel, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock. Thanks to a feckless captain, Jonah Hancock -- a merchant -- loses a ship but finds himself apparently in possession of a mermaid. Gowar wickedly evokes the brothels and coffee shops of Georgian London, abuzz with talk of this extraordinary creature. he impeccable period detail is brought to life by the sheer joy of Gowar’s prose in this bawdy, witty tale. And she has particular fun with Angelica Neal, a spoilt, spirited and highly accomplished courtesan.