02/12/2011 The Review Show

Tonight, on a Book Review Show special, Christmas has come early,

we are helping you to pick the best books to put under the tree this

year. With just 21 shopping days until

Chris marks we have asked each of our panelists to pick their top

tips for boorbist presents this year. Kate Mosse enthuses about

Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman, and Ian Rankin's crime thriller,

The Impossible Dead. Marcel Theroux argues the case for Matthew

Hollis's Fransolent. Mark Ravenhill champions shoe selected stories by

Alice Munro, and Factory Girls, and Sophie Hannah battles for Why Be

Happy When You Could Be Normal, and the very, very bad Sex Awards. In

the week of his death, we know the scene for which Ken Russell will

always be remembered. Here for a premature Christmas the

four crickets you dream of meeting under the mistltoe, Kate Mosse,

Mark Ravenhill, Sophie Hannah and Marcel Theroux.

This week each of my guest has chosen two books, one fiction, one

non-fiction, that they recommend you buy someone for Christmas. Each

has two minutes to argue their case. First up is Kate. Kate's first

choice is Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman, a bomb bastic memoir that

makes sure there is fun in feminism. It is the funnyiest book I have

read this year, possibly one of the funnyiest books I have ever read.

It is part rant, part philosophy, part feminism, part memoir. This is

not a feminist manifesto, or a call to arms. This is absolutely an act

of personal enlightenment. And saying, these are the things that I

thought, this is why I call myself a feminist, you too should call

yourself a feminist, I will tell you why I think it is. This is the

anti-Cosmo, it is the anti-women's magazines, this sort of woman or

that sort of woman. This woman says you can be any woman you want to be,

you know what, it is fun. Trust me, the minute you do that and lie on

the floor and look up at the starsa decide the person you want to be,

your life will change. Anybody who gets this book will laugh all the

way through Christmas and Boxing Day, they will feel liberated to

drink and eat as much as they want. When they shut it they will think I

will give that to another ten people I know. Kate's choice of

fiction is Ian Rankin The Impossible Dead. His second crime

drama, featuring DCI Malcolm Fox, a very different rozzer to Rebus.

Rankin is one of the most important British crime writers, it not, the

most important. Many people have not been able to get into him,

because he wrote so many Rebus novels, this is just the second in

a new series. I want to say to anybody, who has always wanted to

read Ian Rankin, but put off by the fact there is 25 Rebus novels.

These new ones with Malcolm Fox are great. They work, why, because they

are proper plotting, characters, properly clever. They also have

what all great crime writing has, which is a proper sense of social

context, and really showing a mirror, holding a mirror up to the

world. There are all sorts of things about what it means to be a

carer and juggling the personalal life and professional lie. These

people are all men, that is refreshing foo. It is absolutely a

crime novel you can give to anyone who likes crime, it won't offend

anyone, but when you shut the book you will think that was a proper

old fashioned puzzle. Caitlin Moran, Sophie did you read it and want to

give it to ten people and shout hurray? It is a brilliant and

hilarious book. You can't imagine that any woman with a sense of

humour wouldn't love it and wouldn't be able to relate to it

completely. It is just hilarious. It is riven with humour, but makes

some incredibly serious points. I thought one of the best things was

when talking about a 14-year-old boy and girl saying, on-line porn,

why can't it be lovely, it is so scary for both girls and boys at

that age, let's have more of it, but let's make it consensual, great

sex. Do you think it was worth reading? I would regift it, I'm

afraid! After about 25 pages, because I think Caitlin Moran is a

very attractive person and I love her columns. But that voice, after

about 25 pages it really pulls. She has developed this thing, a nerdy

teenager, she's a woman, as the title of the book says. This nerdy

teenager with a snake bite in one hand and menthol cigarette in the

other, just ground me down, I found it hard to get through. I'm with

Mark, I found the serious sections more moving, when she was writing

about her decision to have an abortion, when she's writing about

breaking up with a boyfriend. These kinds of things. I felt she had six

espressos and tried to write jokes about her underwear. It is funny,

what is great about the book is her sharing stuff that one would be

embarrassed to share. That is liberating. There is a great line

about talking about overweight, saying we were the elephants in the

room. When you are fat when you are not shaped like a human. Did'nt you

think the threading of this idea, particularly for younger

generations, the idea that the serious stuff is threaded through

with all this humour. I think in terms of talking about abortion, it

is one of the best and most moving things I have read ever about

abortion. That is true, I'm obviously not its demographic. I

thought it was feminism as seen through Sunday Times style section,

Mulberry handbags and Jimmy choos. Jo there were developments of the

last 30 years, and if we went back to 1970 most of the problems would

be solved, it is a peculiar idea of feminism. There is ladishness to it,

I'm too old for it. I read it because my 21-year-old daughter

recommended it to me. Although you say it looks slightly regressive to

cancel it all out, it is more about a different way of looking at some

of the issues that have not been solved. I didn't find the voice

greated at all -- grated at all. I loved that voice, she came across

as such a lovely, funny person. does in her columns too.

message comes across strongly. is the message? Being a feminist

involves asking the question, would the men be doing this, are the men

doing this? I thought feminism was just about discovering you are a

human being. It is not about saying you can have all kinds of ways, it

is about personal self-respect and having a reasonable deal in the

world. She has these ground rules. How do you judge whether you're

being a feminist and whether you are behaving in an appropriate way,

she says the question is to ask "are the men doing this?", I

thought when I was having my mascara put on in the make-up room,

I thought are the men having mascara. We asked, we were denied.

Even just the pubgt situation annoyed me, if I had a pound for

every -- pubgt situation marks annoyed me, if I had a pound for

every one I would be a rich man. She loves a list, it was like

reading an awful teenage diary. Final word? I think there is an

element of age, I think I'm probably too old for this, maybe

you are too. I think what it is, this is individual feminism, but it

is also a feminism that is refusing to be defined about what other

people said feminism should have been. That is incredibly important

in terms of liberating girls and boys. We move on to Ian Rankin, did

you find with the book that he absolutely had got his mojo back?

wasn't aware of him ever having lost it, I have to say. I thought

it was a brilliant book, what I particularly loved was the absolute

focus on story. You can tell, all the way through, that the author

just loves telling a good story, that is his top priority, and I

sometimes get slightly tired of reading, I read an awful lot of

crime novel, often I get the sense that telling a brilliant story is

not the writer's main priority. Here is absolutely was. As you say,

it is immaculately plotted, it races along. The characters have

real depth, it is so sort ofers and economical in terms of the prose, -

- terse and economical in terms of the prose. It is a true story, the

murder, it felt to me that Ian Rankin had embraced this, and

thought I will put everything I have into it? It goes like a train.

You don't know until the last ten pages, which is everything you ask

in a thriller. I really enjoyed it, in that respect. It was my first

experience of Ian Rankin. Was it? was glad I could come into a second

novel in a series and not feel I had all this baggage. It was

refreshing that the detective was a, he wasn't a maverick, he was a wuss

and shying away from conflict, it was a relief to dispense from the

cliches. There is real wit and sharpness about it. It is my first-

ever Ian Rankin book, the first time I have ever tasted the mojo.

And it was absolutely fantastic, he's so topical on the money with

SNP politics, and just feels so much as though it is right in the

moment. Just the lightest of touches he can establish a

character and situation. Just as a writer you are rereading this and

say how can you so quickly establish a character. The dialogue

is fast, the short sentences, the genre pleasure, he says do you

think we should speak to the former psyche cotic Scottish terrorists,

does he have anything to do it, of course he does. He's part of

investigating other policemen and the mistrust and disDane they are

held in, and taunted by the other policemen. It is fascinating.

had all these different sets of cops, he managed to delinate them

incredibly well very quickly, you got a clear sense of character.

What is so clever about it, there are essentially two parallel

stories, the nature of terrorism, how in the mid-1980s many of us

lived in that sort of way, now we are in a different generation of

terrorism. It is so light, there is no, let's pretend we were in the

same place as then, it means you come away thinking the patterns go

around and comes around. It does end with two guys chasing each

other in a forest. Which is standard. As elaborate as it is,

the pay-off ends up there. Any way, one for the stocking I think. Next

up to get into the Santa spirit, is a different selection, a biography

of the war poet, Edward Thomas, and a 700-page graphic novel. The non-

fiction is Now All Roads Lead To France, a touching biography of

Edward Thomas. It is not the first biography but the best. It focuses

on the last five years of his life. He's an interesting character, he

came to his poetic vocation late. It is about the crisis he went

through that leads to him finally discovering what he's supposed to

be in life, which is a poet. It is about the world of 100 years ago.

It starts around 1911, it is a world that is vanishing, but it is

the world that our grandparents and great-grand parents knew. It has a

trace of fame yart about it, at the heart of it is a really --

familiarity about it, and at the heart of it is about creativity

ruining your life. He's a miserable sod throughout the book, not a

sympathetic character. The catalyst of his become ago poet is his

meeting with Robert Frost, coming to London, part of the literary

world, their friendship uncorks something in him and it comes to

right. He gives a good account about how poetry happens, a very

plausible description of what a poet does and how a people comes

into being. It is a timely book, we are coming up to 1914, the

centinary of 1914, and thinking about the First World War, this is

one of those books that sets the scene for that period of

remembrance. For his fiction choice, he hasic

abouted Habibi, a rich and summous graphic novel by Craig Thompson.

What I liked about the book. It is graphic Noel that tells the story

of two orphans, it is a rip-roaring read t has a lot of sex in it. It

isn't for children, it is graphic, it is for adults. It is set in an

Arabian Knights world of desspottic Sultans and uniques and hare

recommends, it is also -- There is Arabic kal lig fee, there is an

extraordinary lovely object out of this, which would be a lovely thing

to find under the Christmas tree. The he had war Thomas first. I

wonder -- The Edward Thomas first, I wonder if Richard Thomas set out

to write this, and thought how difficult a person Edward Thomas

was, it starts as a story of someone who becomes a poet from

being a cricket, then there was all this dark stuff about him? The film

was so suck sibgt in why the book works. It was beautifully written.

There is the life and the expression of poetry and how

creativity works, the destrubgtiveness of being poisoned

by creativity with no outlet. But I wish I hadn't read it. I have

always very much enjoyed his poetry. I hate to look at art through the

prisism of his life, they are not the same thing, the man, the woman,

the art. I have always, there is always a filter around the First

World War, we all know a lot about it, it is one of those periods of

history that we know. He's not just a miserable old sod, he's self-

obsessed, preoccupied all the time, he leads his wife, children,

friends a merry dance, and there is a horrible sort of mythology of the

great man of letters, when he isn't even one. So I found it very

interesting as a biography, or all sorts of reasons, but I wish I

hadn't read it. Ted Hughes talks about him being the father of us

all? God help us. His wife wrote a memoir of their relationship, which

is an interesting work. I'm not claiming anything exemplary about

their relationship. They got married very young and it was a

difficult relationship. He was so cruel to her. The idea of him

blossoming out into a poet, before he gets to that point, the one time

he actually turns back on his critque, is on pound. He says Ezra

Pound is this marvellous as new writing, then he reverses his

decision when he's facing other poets' wrath. I thought that was an

interesting point in the book, it was almost when he stopped being

the critic, when he realised it wasn't for him. I found all the

gossip about the poetry world, all these people who you hear as

legendary games in poetry, you read their work, suddenly -- names in

poetry, you read their work, and suddenly they are ordinary human

beings with ambition and squabbling. I agree with Kate, Edward Thomas

comes across as such an awful person. I'm usually sympathetic to

unsympathetic characters, I love them, he was a peculiar brand of

self-absorption. Spiteful. It says his children sat in silence at the

dinner table every night because they were so scared of saying

something that would bring on one of his bad moods. I thought I'm not

interested any more. If your children were that scared of you,

then I don't care how good your peoples are, I'm not interested.

Poems are, I'm nod interested. makes the book powerful is we know

where it is heading, it is going to the war. This man gets obsessed by

these little battles between poets and the daily grind of cruelty to

his family and hardship of living. We know we are heading towards the

First World War, when we get there he can't quite say why he's going

or fighting. He has a fatalistic sense of why are we doing this?

thing we haven't mentioned is his love for the landscape, and what he

feels about nature, it is very profound. I feel I should say a

word in his defence. I think one of the things that makes him so

prickley, is because he hates himself for the way he behaves

towards his family.'S on the bread line,'s earning beans and he can't

feed his family. He finds -- he's on the breadline and earning beans

and he can't feed his family. not just his family, there is one

bit that resonates, it describes a friend of his builds him a house to

live in from all the best new materials, his comment is the house

is full of old griefs, full of new griefs to come. I just thought what

an ungrateful get. There is something ruthless about an artist,

any artist. I think maybe we are a bit schemeish because we recognise

something in our glrb squemish because we recognise it. Let's talk

about Habibi, it is the Koran, Old Testament, it is sex, saidism,

isn't it? I thought it was great. I hadn't appreciated how much

connection there was between the Koran and the Old Testament, and

how many of those stories from the two Bibles cross over. Then it

takes on this huge epic journal year, it is graphic novel, all

about ink and symbols, it has this weird sexuality in the centre of it

that is really quite disturbing.S had attitude to sex and sexuality

is very strange, that drew me through the book. He grew up in an

evangelical household, there is some distaste or something about

the sex in the book. I found it difficult to navigate it through,

you had to go back, you were trying to work out was she telling the

story to the little boy. That was good, you looked at all the

beautiful caligraphy. That was so beautiful about the book, the

stories within stories, the reminding of the be a -- be a

hammic faiths have. It is beautiful and interesting about the Old

Testament and Koran faith, but I was appalled. This book starts with

the rape of a nine-year-old. Although we are saying this sex is

distasteful, I think it is a bit more than that. If this was a book

that had been discovered, in the deserts, in 1600, I would possibly

find it less worrying than I do. This is written by a young man, now.

All the way through the book, it is a series of, the lead child, as she

is, being raped over and over again. It is not sex, it is rape. For me

it was too much. What did you think about that? My views on this book

should probably be completely discounted, because I hated it. But,

I'm sure it is brilliant, I have a problem with the graphic Noel as a

form, eventhough I abs -- graphic novel as a form. Eventhough I love

novels, as soon as I saw Habibi I thought, oh no, I just hated it. I

don't know how much was that this specific graphic novel. The great

thing about this as a graphic novel is he is able to move through

different forms of story telling, some of the pictures look like

something out of a Disney film and he moves through into script.

is the problem, it is seductive. The idea that some how, because it

is very beautiful and very clever, all of those things I agree with, I

did actually, in a weird way, enjoy touching it and looking at it in

all sorts of ways. But in the end it is still images of a child being

raped repeatedly through this entire book. I couldn't get past

that to appreciate the beauty, I'm sorry to say. You will be getting

it. The sex is disquieting. It is meant to be. Next to poke their

head above the parapet is Mark, with a selection of short stories

that almost qualifies as new, and unChristmassy account of working

life in China. Mark's non-fiction choice is

Factory Girls by Leslie T Chang, knows narrative of the largest

migration in history, is an explanation of what motivates the

largely female work force. expect the book to be an expose say

of the terrible conditions, and the conditions are very, very tu. But

it is also a tribute to their energy, and their determination.

What Chang manages to do is really personalise it, she is of Chinese

origin herself. She has really personal connections with the sbt

matter, but she -- Subject matter, but she follows it into the

factories. When you read the book you get projected back to yourself,

the past, you get a sense of what it must have been like to be part

of the Industrial Revolution in England in the 1840s, that sense of

phenomenal social change. The most popular book to date about the

Chinese situation has been Wild Swans, that very much focused on

events of 40, 50 years ago. For any reader, this is a really great book

to get a sense of where China is now, and where it might be going.

In the fiction catagory, mark has chosen New Selected Stories by

Alice Munro, a compendum of some of the author's finest work. What is

great in a few pages she manages to capture 30 years. There is huge

momentous changes in individual's lives, often women, often set in

her native character. There is as much incident as a Thomas Hard

Times novel, but written with the - - Thomas Hardy novel, but written

with the lightest of touches. They are ordinary situations, how we

feel about being married, being a parent, our relationship to the

past. There is something about the sense of humour, there is a slight

sense of her characters being pioneers. I think there is

somewhere in there a Canadian sensability. I don't think that

could have been written by an English or Scottish writer.

This is some of her best known stories, do you think reading them

again, did it reinforce her reputation as a famous short story-

teller? I think she's one of the best writers on the planet right

now, this collection is amazing. She has a buy onic level of

observation. She's -- bionic level of observation. She's hearing and

seeing things that other writers don't get. Whether it is nature or

a glance between lovers, or something in a marriage or

relationship, as you read the story you see it with an incredibly

enhanced level of intensity, that stays with you some what when you

put the book down. She has an exceptional gift. It is a gift for

the short story, but is the short story itself satisfying, she brings

these wonderful characters to life and they are gone in a puff of

smoke? That is always my feeling about short stories. That I often

feel a little bit like a need another piece of toast, I'm not

quite full. I think she's equisite. It is the literature of observation,

it is the literature of the moment, rather than the overblown, purple

prose, that would be all over the place. I think that what makes her

different from any of the other short story writers, of course, is

she had sequences of characters, ages -- ageing of characters, there

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 195 seconds

They were liberating themselves in a way. She had -- she said she had

read more about the bottom of Oprah Winfrey than about China! I was

really pleased to have read it. There is no sense at... You are

right that this is liberating and actually these young women, I

thought particular the chaps in the village and that was all very good.

They have not got more power. That is precisely it. For me, the most

poignant moment... It is about their possessions. Depending on

their job status, their power relationships within the family

changes. But still, that counts for a lot. It has one of the characters

is... Hang on. Let her finish at point! I found it an incredibly

gripping book and I could not put it down. I thought it was so

interesting about the relationship between women's career aspirations

and their family relationships and how those things work together.

There are so few books about women's attitudes to their working

lives. Even in the West. brilliant thing about this was that

it was life-affirming in the way they helped each other. Some of the

girls didn't but many did. What we don't see are these terribly

downtrodden slaves, which we thought we were going to see. But

things are changing and you get the sense of massive upheaval. Let's

move on to your choice, as Sophie. One from the celebrated crime

writer and the real story behind Oranges Are Not the Only fruit.

This non-fiction choice details and upbringing in Accrington and a

child who had lived in the shadows of her mother. The title is a

direct quote from Mrs Winterson, Janet's adoptive mother, when she

tells her she is in love with a girl and she tries to explain to

her that it makes her happy being in a relationship with this girl.

Why be happy when you could be normal? It is a brilliant title.

And debris and moment in the book, because at that point, a new kind

of realise, well, this is what we are dealing with. I don't buy into

this idea that if you write about upsetting things then you have

written a depressing book. If you have written brilliantly about

difficult, traumatic experiences, that is uplifting. To see somebody

can go through such a horrendous experience and come out not only

intact, but also as brilliant a Sophie's fiction choice is Faithful

Place by Tana French. The police detective Frank, is told by the

police that the suitcase of his girlfriend has been found of 20

years ago, they were supposed to elope together, and she disappeared

and nobody saw her again. Frank is determined to get to the bottom of

this and find out what happened to the love of his life who

disappeared 20 years ago. My main interest in Tana French's writing

and this book is the human story. Her characters are so real. I think

thatth's because she gets right into their minds. She writes about

character -- I think that's because she gets right into their mind, you

know what they are thinking, even when they are having unworthy

thoughts, even if they are being selfish and a bit grotty and not

doing the noble thing, you are right there inside their heads with

them. It is as well written as any Booker Prize winner. And as

brilliantly plotted as any best- selling commercial novel. It is

virtually a perfect book, in my view.

Mark, for you is a virtually a perfect book? On the re-gift pile

again. For me, the central character was PC Plodding, really.

I'm not good with crime models, maybe a bit butch for me. These

middleaged men with troubled family lives, plodding through a plot, I

find dull. I thought the writing a novel about how much Dublin,

Ireland has changed, was really a great thing. I wanted that theme to

have room to breathe. I felt it was trapped by genre and even the

tropes of genre writing. Very much like Ian Rankin's book was set in

Scotland, the Dublin of this was very well realised? I have never

read Tana French because the jacket it had made me think it was

extremely violent and not for me. I think it is a superbly written book.

I entirely agree, there is the unusual combination of a very well

put together story, but there is also this incredible sense of place,

and outstanding dialogue, I would say. The sense of poor Dublin. For

me, what made it work particularly was, oddly with the books we have

in this programme, it was how do you get out of a life that you

don't want to live. How do you get away from the violence that is

endemic and all around you? How do you carve yourself a tiny bit of

space? Almost like The Facts Of Love, and I thought this was, for

me I went and bought her other books because I wanted to read them.

I don't think it is a Booker Prize winner, but it is exceptionally

good dialogue. You had read Ian Rankin and converted to crime

novels, did this do it? I found myself shouting out "he's behind

you" from page 40, it was obvious who done it. For 300 pages you are

thinking why on earth. To me it was bizarrely, badly-plodded, it was

obvious who the killer was. I have to disagree with that. I had no

clue who the killer was. Don't say who it is? I won't, absolutely not.

I'm not the Grinch! I think it is interesting, the fact that you say

you don't read a lot of crime. I think if you read as much crime as

I do, you would know that Frank, the central character in this, he's

not like all the other cops. He's a maverick hard-drinking cop divorced.

Seeing his children on the weekends. He's fighting to get back on the

case, I recognise all the cliches. You are looking at the CV points,

you are right inside his mind, I promise you, he is far more

lovingly described and fleshed out and psychalogically complex than

almost any detective I have read. Led's move on to the second choice

-- let's move on to the second choice, Jeanette Winterson 's, what

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit was to fiction, this is the story of

Jeanette Winterson, I found it a deeply, deeply sad book. I found it

a very sad book, but a superb book. It is neither a memoir or biography.

For me, it was actually, how do you, the same point, working-class men

and women, particularly in the context of this show, working-class

girls, how do you get out of the path that you have been put on.

Whether it is the Caitlin Moran in a totally different way, and the

Jeanette Winterson, that is why I suppose I found the Factory Girls,

something depressing for me, doing it through the make-up and the

selling. Here you have Jeanette Winterson, books saved her loif,

she just made the decision she could -- life, she just made the

decision that she could not be this person, this pretty abusive

childhood, she started with A, B, in the library, she made herself so

powerful she didn't needing to through the alphabet in order. It

was sad in some ways, but it is an incredibly uplifting book about the

power of words. She is unflinching about herself? She doesn't come

across amazing. The other figure in the book, the mum, Mrs Winterson,

her adoptive mother. One of the things I took away with the book,

the sense her mum is her muse, I know it was a miserable childhood,

you wouldn't wish it on anyone, this is what made her a writer.

This is her Dickens in the factory experience. As strange as her mum

was, her mum has huge respect for words, she burns books. Of the ones

we have read, this was a stand-up book i thought it was incredible.

Although Jeanette Winterson's story in some ways is so peculiar, it is

all our stories, it is about reconciling yourself to your

relationship with your parent, whatever that parent might be. She

is rawly honest about herself, but it is a much bigger story than her

own story. This whole experience of a working-class culture that

educates you, and finally she goes back to the library, and the

literature A-Z section is take Anne way and it is devastating. It is

wonderful to the way to describe adoption, culling through part way

through the story. -- coming through part the way through the

story. Going to find her birth mother, confession about how she

has felt low in her own story. identity crisis is brilliantly

paralleled. The adoptive family and the birth mother, that is

paralleled by the reference she maids to her public persona as a

writer, in brackets she mentioned her critical reception, some people

say she's brilliant, and some say she's rubbish, that is mentioned in

passing. Even as a writer she doesn't know who she is. So much I

had reading the book, where Jeanette Winterson became a loved

public figure like Alan Bennett, Victoria Wood, like a warm, cuddly

northerner, then she says something so sharp like "I could murder

someone", then you think she won't be that character, she will always

be edgey. The thing I loved about it, she really is one of the stand-

out writers, whatever the books you might like or dislike. The fact

there is a bravery, to say, you know what, these 20 years inbetween,

I won't tell but those, they are not your business at the moment.

That takes a writer of real genius to go, you know what, it is my book.

The line by line is great, it is so easy, it is like someone chatting,

she will turn a phrase, you think this is not someone chatting, this

is honed prose. Buy it for Christmas, at least for one person.

Do not regift. If one thing enthuses people more than Christmas

books it is Santa-size-sackfuls of sex, next week's literary awards

will capture the imagination. As an extra treat, or not, we asked each

of the panel to raet their favourite nominee. Going first with

his -- rate their favourite nominee. Going first is Marcel.

The Land Of The Painted Caves, "he went lower, found the entrance of

her warm, wet cave, she spread her legs to give more access, he got up

and lowered himself". Kate? Mortgagefying, I'm reading Lee

Child for The Affair. "we stood up again, and kissed again, by that

point in my life I had kissed hundreds of girls, I was ready to

admit this was the finest of them all. She was spectacular. She moved

and quiffered and trembled, she was strong but gentle, passionate but

not aggressive, hungry but not demanding. The clock in my head

took a break, we had all the time in the world. We were going to use

every last minute of it. This is Sebastian Barry, "we got

rid of our dammed clothes, and clung, he was in me when, they were

happy, lapy, young n that room by the water, and in those -- happy,

happy and young, in that room by the water, and in those moments we

knew we would marry and not a word would be spoke about it ". This is

Stephen King, 1/11/63. "is that all of it, or is there more? I haven't

been with a woman in such a long time. It turned out a lot more, in

the end she began to gasp, oh my dear, oh my dear, oh my dear God,

oh sugar!" Luckily we have run right out of time before mine! On

that salacious note, that is all for this week, thanks to my little

helpers, Kate Mosse, Sophie Hannah, Marcel Theroux and Mark Ravenhill.

You can find out more about tonight's items on the website.

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