Being about stuff I'm planning to do for Christmas, of course! For the last couple of years, I've tried to come up with some Christmas-themed stories in addition to whatever is going on in Josiah and Archibald's rather odd world (which is also Christmas-themed at the moment, by happy coincidence!). This year, I've made a start with Christmas Pan-to , which considered the likely conversation between some of the items in a hardware shop window at...

Thirty Four Kilometres from where I live is Newgrange , and this morning the winter solstice took place. The site is believed to be over 5000 years old, and today is the shortest day and the longest night in Ireland. Its a time of stories being told around fires, of staying close to the light and ignoring the darkness around. And the world today is in a very, very dark place. So we console ourselves with stories, tales and conversations...

Luckenbooth in Edinburgh dialect means Lockedbooth, the kind stall holders carted about to sell goods. Jenni Fagan whittles down her writing to what is true. She’s full of surprises. So when the devil’s daughter rows away from a Scottish island in a coffin made by her father and ends up in Leith docks, it’s no bigger surprise than Mary Anne McLeod leaving Tong, marrying Fred Trump and fathering the devil’s child Donald. The structure of the book...

Chapter Nine – Do you still hope to venture into a ‘significant other’ pair? Why / why not? Donna Yes, even for companionship in my old age. Alyss I would love a friend, a partner, someone who cares what happens to me, someone to be a shoulder to cry on and offer a smile of encouragement when things get tough… someone who knows if I am sick, or need help… but as time wears on, I am now not so sure I could merge my independent life with someone...

Question Eight – Traditionally, faith systems and social systems prefer women in a ‘paired off’ state. How have you navigated such thoughts and spaces? Donna I’m lucky that neither my family or my faith system has pressured me in any way. Alyss, I have learnt to keep quiet. I have sat in prayer circles where families with children are prayed for, as that’s what people believe in and that’s what the Bible calls for. The social system of holiday...

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store was Barrack Obama’s Pick for Book of the Year. You’d expect that. Much of the book is set in the years of the Great Depression, 1936. At the very bottom of the heap were the black man and woman. Standing beside them, but slightly above them were the immigrant whites, the Jews, whom the world could burn for all they cared. Top of the heap of Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania those with some education like Doc Roberts...

Tracy King is the exception to the rule, rule. She’s working class. She got educated. She got a book published by one of the big five (or four) publishers. And, oh yeh, her dad got murdered. I’d read about what happened next in The Observer. She starts but not at the beginning. Setting the scene: I was born to working-class parents. Mum, Jackie was tiny. She worked part-time as a secretary but really was a full-time mum. Dad worked abroad He was...

Three Fires is a short book, based on an audio script Denise Mina wrote for Radio 4. The logline reads something like she reimagines the life of Girolamo Savonarola. Like me, you might not know who that is. By the end of the book you should know. What are the three fires? Mina offers a definition before getting down to the wordy business of relating them to Girolamo Savonarola. In his Fire Sermon, the Buddha identified three poisons or three...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00263cs/wolf-hall-the-mirror-and-the-light-6-light?seriesId=m0024ywj I missed The Mirror and the Light on Sunday night because I was drunk as a Lord. Last episode, ‘Light’ takes us into the darkness. We all know that the commoner Thomas Cromwell, the power behind the throne of Henry VIII, will reach a dastardly end. He’s seen too much and knows too much. And there can only be one king. It’s in the title...

Donna No, none that I can think of. Alyss Hallmark Romance movies, Romance novels – from Jane Austen to Nora Roberts, Facebook where the highlight reels are friends and their children and loved ones. I used to happily go to restaurants on my own, but I can’t manage that anymore. Sadly, I was given a restaurant voucher as a gift, but I have no-one who visits me, or who I could use it with, and I don’t want to sit there on my own anymore… so that...