Fi Phillips

My bookshelves are overloaded to the point of collapse with all the reading material my family have collected over the years. With each new purchase, I rearrange them a little. With each house move, I cull a percentage of them but that always makes me want to buy more. My children devour books so quickly that every birthday and Christmas present list includes at least one new book for them. There are some books though that I will never part with, however full the bookshelves become, because they're tied in with my life journey and soaked with memories. They're keepers. 1. On Writing by Stephen King As a writer learning the craft, I'm drawn to discovering how successful published authors have arrived at that point in their lives. I don't fare very well with instructive 'how to' books on writing. Sharing a writer's personal journey is the best way for me to learn. I've read several books of this kind but the best I've come across so far has be...

I was a reader long before I was a writer. As an only child to older parents, I was allowed to read whatever book, out of the many crammed shelves in our home, took my fancy. I read thrillers, fairytales, history, plays, poetry - making no differentiation between genre or form. As a writer now, I continue to read. I don't just read what I write though (plays, murder mysteries, fantasy). I do my best to stretch my reading choices to other less familiar genres too. This is what I've read over the last six months. The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie I came to Titania Hardie through her books on witchcraft. She has a very calm writing voice so I was excited to buy her first adult fiction book. The Rose Labyrinth is a historical mystery featuring Elizabethan spies and geniuses, a family legacy and the long, hot summer of 2003. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell This non fiction book discusses Campbell's theory of the journey of the archetypal hero as ...

It's the first day of July and we have rain - not the nice, refreshing sprinkling that would have been welcome after the last few days of blazing sunshine, but the kind of rain that brings grey to the skies and frowns to our faces. It chased me around the garden this morning as I rushed to bring in the washing and then soaked me as I carried my shopping from the supermarket to the car. Wet t-shirt and dripping hair is not a good look on me. Now I'm back in the house and the shopping is put away, all I want to do is snuggle up with a coffee and a book. I'm not exactly short on reading material (my main shopping habit) but what book would suit my mood today, a day when I want to feel cosy and warm indoors? The first book that comes to mind is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I have an old battered hardback from the 1940s that belonged to my aunt. A tale of passion and tragedy, the setting of the Yorkshire moors is described in a way that reflects the hard lives and cruelty...