Ultimate Library: Country & Town Interiors Book 2023

Now celebrating its 15th anniversary, Ultimate Library has invigorated book collections for clients in over 50 countries. The company was founded by Philip Blackwell, inspired by his love of travel and the power of books to create a sense of place and a unique perspective. Its London-based team of bibliophiles curate intelligent and stylish libraries that entertain and captivate readers in high-end hotels, resorts, private townhouses and holiday homes. It offers a highly personalised service beginning with design concepts, through to installation.

The pandemic caused a surge in demand for home libraries, as people sought fresh and economical ways to decorate their living spaces. The team works closely with interior design studios, developers, and private clients to achieve the perfect book look. Recently, a Kensington townhouse designed by Emilia Laurie required a library that felt like it had been built over many years. Ultimate Library sourced vintage cloth titles with gilded spines for the higher shelves, contemporary hardbacks highlighting the client’s love of travel, history and philosophy for the mid shelves, and illustrated titles on the lower shelves that explore London’s fashion and design scenes. Further afield, it worked with stylist Amie Mercer to create a space to cosy up in after a day on the slopes for a ski chalet in Austria. The bookshelves feature winter crime, Austrian classics by authors such as Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig, cutting-edge books on wellbeing, and plenty on skiing and hiking.

Within luxury hospitality, wellbeing titles are being requested more frequently by global clients including Six Senses and Raffles to complement ground-breaking spas. With reading itself helping many to relax and unwind, well-chosen books on meditation, mindfulness and breathwork encourage guests to put away their devices and enjoy what is truly an ultimate library.

Tips, Tricks & Tools

1. ‘Create stylish and lived-in book collections by mixing contemporary hardback books with vintage clothbound and leather tomes.’
2. ‘Install bookplates in your collection. These small stickers go on the title page to personalise your treasured books and ensure you can retrieve any that you’ve loaned out.’
3. ‘Build joinery with your books in mind. When planning a collection, the first thing we ask clients for is joinery elevations. Illustrated books add weight to lower shelves, while books you’ve already read can live higher up, out of easy reach.’
4. ‘Show off your books by installing lighting at the front, rather than at the back of shelves. This adds atmosphere to a room, and also means that they photograph better.’
5. ‘Remember your library tells a story. Create interest in shelves by accessorising your favourite books with photographs and attractive objects from your travels.’

Secret Address Book

• Independent Publisher: Hoxton Mini Press produces beautiful art and photography books (hoxtonminipress.com).
• Podcast: The Wandering Book Collector, by Michelle Jana Chan, who interviews award-winning authors.
• Online Boutique: The Garnered for hand-crafted interior objets (thegarnered.com).

ULTIMATE LIBRARY
Studio 9, Chelsea Gate Studios, 115 Harwood Road, London SW6 4QL
+44 (0)20 8705 0765
ultimatelibrary.co.uk
ultimatelibrary

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The Best Book Clubs In London

1. BookBar Book Club

The little independent BookBar bookshop is situated in Islington, home to a wine bar and a plethora of gorgeous books, with a dollop of friendliness for good measure. The monthly book club is entirely virtual, focussing on new-release paperbacks and inviting the author to lead the book club discussion. Past authors include Ann Patchett, Brit Bennett, Elif Shafak, Natasha Brown and Meg Mason. One-off tickets priced at £18 or buy a membership for £15 per month. bookbar.com

 

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2. Rebel Book Club

In 2015, founders Ben Keene and Ben Saul-Garner set up Rebel Book Club after noticing a gap in the market for non-fiction focused book clubs. Operating in both London and Bristol, meet-ups take place monthly both virtually and in-person, and every month you’ll be sent a voucher for a non-fiction book – voted for by members – which you’ll discuss with fellow RBC members while sipping on book-inspired cocktails at a unique venue. Sometimes the author will be present, either via Skype call or in person, with upcoming themes including digital minimalism, religion, mortality in the modern world and personal finance. rebelbookclub.co.uk

3. Emily’s Walking Book Club

Each month, journalist and writer Emily Rhodes leads a group of book lovers around Hampstead Heath – come rain or shine – and she’s been doing so for over a decade now. The thinking behind it is you’re more relaxed when walking, so conversation flows better. Books up for discussion are planned in advance and you can book your place on the walk or for a Zoom discussion on her website. Don your hiking boots and turn up to Daunt Books in Hampstead, the starting point for your hearty walk. emilyrhodeswriter.com

4. Brixton Book Group

A friendly, informal book club, Brixton Book Club has been going strong for years. Members meet in a pub in Brixton once a month, where they’ll chat about a wide range of books – all are welcome to pitch suggestions. brixtonbookgroup.com

Pages of Hackney

5. Pages of Hackney

An independent book shop opened over 10 years ago, Pages of Hackney has scooped up a number of awards over the years. Alongside its impressive collection of books – which includes a carefully curated selection of vintage numbers – they run a popular monthly book club, as well as various author events. pagesofhackney.co.uk

6. Clapham Girls Book Club

Just moved to Clapham and looking for some new pals? Clapham Girls Book Club is the place for you. They organise monthly meet-ups, where you’ll discuss a chosen book, with past events focusing on novels like This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay, Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult, and The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. But it’s not all about the books – there are also casual social events, designed to encourage Clapham ladies to bond outside of literature discussions over cocktails or brunch. meetup.com

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C&TH Book Club: Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion

© Róisín Loughrey

Belinda Bamber: Tell Me What I Am is the gripping story of a young girl, Ruby, and her quest for her missing past, including the identity of the mother who – she’s been told – abandoned her as a baby. Her growing suspicions about her father are fuelled by her long-lost Aunt Nessa’s attempts to make contact. What inspired it?

Una Mannion: I had started reading about missing persons. In many of the cases of missing women and mothers, an estranged partner who has gained full custody of the children is mentioned as a person of interest in the disappearance. It made me wonder who helps those children remember their mothers if they are cut off from the mother’s family. That erasure seemed the cruellest part of the disappearance, taking away the memory. I teach Antigone every year and we read Latin American adaptations where the mythical story is used to talk about the disappeared. While those adaptations focus on the politically-disappeared, they seem to get to the crux of the cultural anxiety the missing person creates, the lack of closure, the need to make their absence present in the consciousness. While I have written a crime novel in certain respects – a mother leaves for work one day and never arrives – it is also a book about memory, how we remember and how we forget.

BB: The narrative covers 14 years, in which Ruby’s life in rural Vermont gradually intersects with Nessa’s, 400 miles away in Pennsylvania, as each seeks the truth about what happened to Deena. You interweave their stories with that of Deena’s before she went missing. How did you go about mapping this intricately woven plot?

UM: The interweaving or braiding of the two narratives took time and engineering. Ruby’s narrative is largely chronological while Nessa’s plot moves forwards and backwards, and loops around Ruby’s coming of age story. I guess I wanted to show how the past persists, even though Ruby’s father has tried to erase it. I was trying to show parallels between the mother and daughter, moments where their experiences intersect even though the events are 20 years apart. I wrote the two narratives separately. First Ruby’s and then Nessa’s. In the third draft I started to tweak so that the stories were consistent and then I started to stagger the scenes, a few from Ruby and then a few from Nessa. My youngest daughter came up with the suggestion of using coloured post-its with chapter descriptions as a way to start visually diagramming the plot on a wall. It was so helpful to see it and to be able to move post-its around, considering the implications of juxtaposing certain of Nessa’s scenes next to salient moments in Ruby’s story. It went through several iterations before I felt it was working.

BB: Lucas is a strongly realised portrait of a man who sees himself as a devoted father, yet whose need for control is sometimes chilling. How did this character come to you and did your sense of him change in any way as you were writing?

UM: Part of the challenge of writing Lucas’ character was to resist the impulse to completely vilify him as a controlling partner and father. It was important to calibrate the menacing, controlling aspects of his character with traits that make him compelling, that explain why someone like Deena is so immediately drawn to him and how he is able to diminish her ability to make her own decisions. The danger of men like Lucas is that they are often charismatic. When I was first writing Lucas it was from Nessa’s perspective and her representation of him is quite one-dimensional. Her radar is up from the first time she meets him. She doesn’t like him, she sees all the power-tells in his physical behaviour, and she sees her sister disappearing in the relationship, long before she actually vanishes.

Writing Lucas from his daughter Ruby’s perspective helped flesh him out more and, I hope, made him more nuanced. Initially, I avoided writing about Lucas. I had to add scenes to develop their relationship, the tenderness and understanding as well as the undercurrent of control and threat. That was hard because I didn’t want to give him those scenes or give him any credit for the powerful person Ruby is. Scenes I added included the chicks arriving by post and the scene where they go turkey hunting, moments where Ruby thinks he is everything and where they have an understanding that is instinctive.

Because of this, I began to wonder about Lucas’ childhood and what possible damage made him become this person. It’s not that I found empathy for him but I think I made a genuine effort to show the desperation and emptiness at the source of his pathology and that I continued to think of him as a character rather than a caricature or parody of a controlling abuser.

BB: Ruby, Nessa and Deena make for a memorable trio of women, each very different. I was struck that Deena, as the most feminine and flirtatious of the three, is also the most vulnerable, while Ruby and Nessa are more wary, more resilient. It’s notable that, as a keen rower, Ruby becomes physically muscular and strong as a teenager. Do you think there’s a connection between physical and emotional strength for women?

UM: Wow. This observation has stopped me in my tracks. I hope I haven’t penalised women for being more feminine or flirtatious or suggest that this makes them more likely to be less resilient or potentially victimised. That definitely was not my intention. But I guess at an unconscious level there is a suggestion that physical strength and psychological armour help make us more resilient.

Nessa is wary but perhaps to the point that she can’t move on or develop intimate relationships. Ruby’s physical strength was a conscious choice. I wanted her to be a teenager whose social currency is connected to her intelligence, empathy and physical strength. That physical strength also becomes an exit route for her and gives her agency and independence. So in her case physical and emotional strength are connected but this is certainly not the case for all women.

BB: Ruby’s grandmother, Clover, helps to raise her. It’s a fascinating portrayal of a woman caught between loyalty to her son, Lucas, and to her granddaughter. She’s the fourth key female character in the story, who knows much more than she tells. She’s not likeable, yet you describe her with a clear-eyed compassion. Where did she come from?

UM: I had read countless stories of missing women where the partner’s mother was the key alibi in protecting them. Then I started reading accounts where a conviction was obtained when a mother changed her story, remembered something or didn’t want to die with something on her conscience. I don’t want to give a spoiler but those stories inspired the character of Clover. When Deena first meets her, she meets a woman who seems defeated, cowed by her son and perhaps worn down by other men in her life. Her relationship with her granddaughter and a friendship with her neighbour Adelaide awakens something in her. Yes, she tries to protect Lucas. She is a mother. But through other relationships and the strength of those women, she begins to stand up for herself and she instinctively starts to protect Ruby.

BB: There are echoes of The Tempest and I loved Ruby’s biting critique of Prospero. A quote from that play in the preface shows where you got the title: Tell Me What I Am. Did you have that in mind when you started writing?

UM: Yes. The book echoes The Tempest. A father takes a daughter to an isolated island space and then controls her story, laying down memories for her, telling her who she is. For a long time I knew I wanted to write about a mother who disappears, where her estranged partner is the suspect. I wondered who helps the child remember the mother if the father has full custody. Prospero and Miranda came to mind. Prospero is obsessed with the story of the past. He constantly tells others to shut up and he will tell them their story. He controls history both in terms of his family and also the colonial history of the island through Ariel’s and Caliban’s stories.

Shakespeare’s text is in many ways about memory, how we remember and how we forget, the violence of forced forgetting. I’ve been teaching Shakespeare for about 15 years. The trope of absent mothers has always interested me and, alongside that, Shakespeare seems interested in controlling fathers. I love when students call out the relationship between Prospero and Miranda. ‘Wait. What? He just knocks his daughter out with drugs or spells when it’s not convenient to have her awake?’

BB: The sisterly bond between Nessa and Deena is touching – does that reflect your own experience of family?

UM: I have five sisters and two brothers. Sibling relationships seem to surface in everything I write. I know that when I was young I could not separate my experiences from my siblings’. I felt their pain and their happiness like it was my own. One of the heartbreaks of growing up is losing that sense of being inextricably connected, not knowing where they end and you begin. Even though we are separated geographically and in our interests and lifestyles, it is still my sisters that will be there when I am in deep need. The bond between Nessa and Deena is often fraught but persists despite Lucas’ effort to dissolve it.

BB: What aspects of writing the novel did you most enjoy and how long was the gestation?

UM: I love researching. I loved looking at the Champlain islands, reading about the history, looking up plants and species particular to that region. I had the opportunity to talk to people who’ve lived there all their lives, hunting and fishing. I had kayaked around the lake and had rambled around some of the small islands. I also spent several days in Philadelphia with a former homicide detective. Through him I had the opportunity to go to the criminal court and watch cases but also spent a day in the Round House where the homicide unit is based. I spent time on Google Maps walking down streets and looking at bridges and trees. Getting the plot down can be challenging but the research helps because it is the little details you trip across that start to give the story authenticity and vigour.

BB: Do you have a regular writing routine and place to work?

UM: In terms of routine, I would like to be more consistent. I tend to write for intense bursts, all day every day for several weeks. I also need a consistent space. I used to have a caravan parked outside my door that I worked in. Now I rent a space. In my new house I hope to have a garden shed that I can convert into a space where I can work.

BB: You were born in Philadelphia and now live in County Sligo, Ireland. The sisters in the novel also have an Irish background. Can you tell us more about your Irish connection and what it means to you?

UM: Even though I have lived most of my life in Ireland, I have yet to set a novel here. A part of me still worries that people will wonder ‘who does she think she is writing about us?’ When I do set stories in Ireland it’s often from that position of a hyphenated identity, here but not from here. My father emigrated from County Sligo in 1953. He met my mother in Philadelphia in the late 1950s and they had eight children in ten years. And then divorced. It was very unusual at the time and for years, over a decade, we were not allowed to tell his family in Ireland. His parents never knew. He kept coming home to Ireland and brought some of us with him each time. I came first when I was six and then spent the summers when I was 12 and 13.

Perhaps more than other Irish Americans who were first generation, my siblings and I had inherited my father’s sense of being caught between two places. He never quite settled in America, never owned property or lived in one place, but still didn’t quite belong back at home. I guess this instilled a loss in me that I carry. In the novel Nessa’s father brings Irish over every year to work on his contracting business. She resists this, ignores the Irish, forgets them and their names. Yet, the first meaningful relationship she has is with one of them. Despite trying to reject the immigrant connections her father can’t let go of, it is ultimately what draws her, where she feels most at home with another person.

BB: I like the title, The Cormorant, of the broadsheet of prose and poetry you edit. It suggests you’re someone who loves the wild coast. How and why did you start it up?

UM: Thank you for saying that. It seems like cormorants keep sentinel here along the Sligo coast. They overlook the estuaries from the rocks and line the high walls of the harbour in town. They are synonymous with the northwest coastline and do seem to keep watch. Legend says they carried messages between the living and the dead. The title of the broadsheet was also inspired by a poem written by the late Dermot Healy who was based here in the northwest of Ireland and had been an editor of a journal called FORCE 10 which had a particular editorial ethos of publishing very well-known writers like Seamus Heaney alongside writers being published for the very first time or beside spoken word interviews with local characters. We wanted a publication with a similar democracy and we wanted it to be tactile. A thing you could hold rather than read on a screen. The idea of a broadsheet came out of this. We’ve just published our eighth edition.

BB: You’ve won prizes for both poetry and prose – does one come more naturally than the other? And at what point in your life did you know you were a writer?

UM: I am not sure that either feels like it comes naturally, but prose comes with less difficulty. I love poetry and often read verse before I start a day of writing to get me into words, into a way of seeing or something. I still find it hard to say I am a writer. I am trying to write and I am trying to write with integrity, about things that I care about and I have been trying to do this consistently for about ten years.

I knew I wanted to write when I was in my twenties but didn’t start writing until my late forties. I wish I could tell my younger self what it feels like to finish a piece of writing, to have crafted it to a point where you know that there is not much more in your capacity to do to make it better, that sense of accomplishment. It has nothing to do with getting it published or read by anyone else. Just between you and yourself, having created something and put it into the world.

BB: Tell Me What I Am is hard to put down. Is it possible to learn how to write a page-turner? Did you attend any classes or workshops when you were learning your craft, and what advice do you give aspiring writers?

UM: I think the best way to learn how to write is to read and read and read. And write and write and write. After a stint with a writing group where I had started to write stories, I applied for an MA in writing and this was beyond formative in so many ways. I was pushed to start a long form work (my first novel), and, more importantly, I had given myself permission to write. But we didn’t talk about writing a thriller or a page-turner or discuss pace. I think instinctively I am clutching on to the reader, imploring them to stay with me. Don’t go. I think that I am writing literary fiction because I am deeply interested in language and character. But I am also drawn to true crime and mystery. There is something about a literary crime that is incredibly compelling: the real drama of the mysterious or random experience of existence but also the language and metaphor trying to make sense of it.

BB: Which authors do you reach for when you need re-centring, in both life and writing?

UM: I think I reach for writers who reassure me about connection to humanity and to the natural world. This solace comes from both fiction and nonfiction, poetry, short stories and novels. It includes Toni Morrison, Seamus Heaney, Robert MacFarlane, Alice Munro, George Saunders, Eavan Boland, Anne Carson, Lucia Berlin.

BB: Which books are you planning to read this summer, and where will you be?

UM: I am not sure exactly where I will be as I am moving house. After 25 years in the house where my children were born and raised, I am moving. So I will be in Sligo but mostly on the road between the two houses (all going well as no contracts have been signed yet). At the end of the summer, I will be taking my youngest daughter who has just completed her Leaving Certificate to Boston as she has decided to go to college in the States. When I am not theoretically packing and hauling boxes or knocking down walls and painting, I will be reading Barbara Kingsoliver’s Demon Copperhead. I am completely intrigued by her effort to look at the opioid epidemic and Appalachia in the context of the historical exploitation of that region. Because her book riffs on elements of Dickens’ David Copperfield, I will probably read that next. Then, I intend to revisit short story collections by Anton Chekov, Lorrie Moore, George Saunders, Lucia Berlin and more. I am reading to learn from them but also because I love the form.

BB: Our next issue is on a theme of ‘regeneration’. What does that word mean to you?

UM: Instantly, I think of the capacity to grow again after an injury or trauma. I know it has other connotations such as restoring or reinvigorating, the way we regenerate neighbourhoods. But it’s most powerful sense for me is that resilience, that life force that still pulses despite, maybe even because of, the wound.

Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion is published by Faber (£14.99 hardback).

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The Country & Town House Responsible Buyers’ Guide

Must-Have Fashion Coffee Table Books

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Featured Image: Burberry trench coats are made in Yorkshire, England, by an expert team. Courtesy of Burberry

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Not So Perfect Strangers by L.S. Stratton – Interview

© Joe Yablonsky

Hi L.S. Stratton, how’s life going at the moment?

It’s been going well. I’m excited about the release of Not So Perfect Strangers in the U.K. after having a release in the U.S. that exceeded my expectations. I’m also working on edits for my next thriller.

Not So Perfect Strangers is out now – can you give us an elevator pitch?

Not So Perfect Strangers is a twisty thriller inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, that explores themes of race and gender politics.

It’s also about two women in unhappy marriages – what drew you to a story like this?

I have to talk about the story’s origin first. I’m a fan of several Alfred Hitchcock films from Lifeboat (my favorite) to Strangers on a Train. Strangers on a Train, which is an adaptation of the 1950 Patricia Highsmith novel, is such a bizarre but riveting story about two total strangers – Bruno Antony and Guy Haines – who meet randomly on a train ride. They talk about their lives and discover that they both have people they wouldn’t mind getting rid of. Bruno suggests that he and Guy could help one another take care of their ‘nuisances’ by murdering them, Guy dismisses it as a joke, the train arrives at its destination, and the two men go their separate ways never to meet again. Or, so Guy thinks. The story goes from there.

There have been many novels and films that have done their spin on the Strangers on a Train plotline. I wanted to try my hand at it. I changed the characters to two women in unhappy marriages and used the film’s plot as not the entire story, but as a starting point for a novel with much bigger themes and even more twists and turns than what Highsmith and Hitchcock expertly executed.

What was your process of creating the two women?

I wanted to create two women who seem to be polar opposites on the exterior. Madison is a white socialite and wife of a powerful lobbyist in Washington D.C. Tasha is a black working-class woman who could easily be part of my own extended family. But there are two things these women have in common in their private lives: unhappy marriages and similar trauma in their pasts and present.

You were previously a crime reporter – how did that career inform your fiction?

Writing as a crime reporter taught me the importance of a good lede or ‘hook’ – something to immediately catch readers attention. I’ve learned to adapt that to my fiction writing. I try to write openings that immediately have readers invested in the story and eager to see what happens next.

When did you decide to pivot from reporter to novelist?

I’m still a journalist. It’s my ‘day job’. I write novels as well. 

You write across genres – how do you decide which genre to write next?

I’m an avid reader of all genres but my preference and mood varies. The same for my writing. I go where the muse takes me and lately it’s been giving me mystery/thriller plot ideas.

What’s a genre you haven’t tried before that you’d love to write?

I think I would like to try my hand at horror. I’m going in that direction with my next novel which will be a modern gothic thriller that is much creepier and more ominous than Not So Perfect Strangers.

How do you create your stories: plot or character first?

It varies. Sometimes, I see a scene with a character and develop a plot around it. Sometimes, I know the plot and am surprised by how the character is shaped during the course of the writing process.

What is your writing process like? How do you get started, how do you plan, how do you know it’s a good idea?

I’m a mix between a plotter and a pantser. I usually have a rough idea of the plot and start to write a few chapters to get a feel for the story, characters, setting, and tone. By then, I decide if it’s a good enough idea that I want to invest 80K to 100K words and five to nine months’ worth of labor. In the next step, I start to refine the plot by writing a three-to-five page synopsis and more chapters. Maybe 70 to 80 percent of the book is written when I develop a more detailed chapter outline so that I can make sure I’m adequately executing the story. This is especially important with mysteries/thrillers. I need to know if I’m including hints to the reader in the proper places and if I’m pacing the novel correctly.

What is your ideal work set up? Is it day or night? Is it loud or quiet? Private or public?

I prefer writing at home during the day in bed or on a sofa with the television turned low for background noise, but I have learned as a writer with a full-time job and a young child that you take what time and setting is available to you to write. If I waited for the perfect moment and location to write my novels, I would rarely get any writing done.

Do you have a writing playlist? If yes, what are your top writing songs?

Strangely enough, I can write with the benign background noise of the television but I can’t write with music playing. I’ve tried, but I get too emotionally invested. If I hear a sad ballad, it affects my writing and the scene becomes morose. If I hear a peppy pop song, the scene I’m writing becomes more lively. If I hear an angry hip hop or rock track… You get what I’m saying.

Did you always want to be a writer? 

I’d written stories in notebooks for most of my life, but I wanted to be an architect. I started school with a dual major in civil engineering and architecture. But I figured out it wasn’t right for me. Writing was my calling, so I switched majors to journalism and started my first short story that a publisher bought when I was 19.

Which writers inspire you?

I’ve always been inspired by Toni Morrison for the depth and bravery of her writing. I’ve also been a fan of Stephen King for years. He knows what he does well and has built a loyal audience that has endured for decades and continues to grow.

What are your top five favourite books?

Let me preface this by saying I have eclectic tastes:

• It by Stephen King
• A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
• The Warmth of Other Suns, The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
• The Wide Circumference of Love by Marita Golden
• The Girl Before by JP Delaney

What about your favourite films?

• Amelie
• Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
• Cold Mountain
• Big Lebowski
• Clue
• Knives Out

How does it feel for the book to finally be out?

It’s both exciting and scary. It’s good to have something you’ve been working on for a year finally be read by others, but it’s also a bit scary that something that was so personal to you for so long is now available for public consumption and critique. I’ve been through this numerous times as an author, and each time feels like the first time.

What was editing like?

It was intimidating but I’m happy with the final product. My editor, Laura Schreiber, loved my book when we submitted it. That didn’t mean she didn’t have 14-pages’ worth of editorial notes. The plot itself was pretty solid, so most of her notes were on character development. She wanted more details about their motivations, their rationale, etc. It definitely added more depth to the story and made it more real. We went through two rewrites before we arrived at a version we both said, ‘This is it. This is done.’

Did you have a launch party?

No launch party, but I had a book event in honor of my release in the states at a bookstore in Washington, D.C. – my hometown and the city that was the setting of the novel, Not So Perfect Strangers. 

How do you balance writing with the rest of your life? Are you strict and scheduled in treating writing like a 9-5?

I can’t keep a strict schedule because there are too many other things that I’m juggling simultaneously. But when I do carve out time to write, my family knows to respect it. I say, ‘This is my OTHER job. Only interrupt me if you absolutely have to.’

Any tips for budding writers?

Writing is a profession that everyone thinks they can do but, in reality, it takes a lot of time and effort to do it well. It’s a craft where you should constantly evolve and, hopefully, become better at it. Be willing to put in the time and effort to do that. Read other books and analyze the novels that you utterly loved. How did the author execute the plot? What character resonated with you and why? It all helps you to get better at your craft.

Not So Perfect Strangers by L.S. Stratton is published by Union Square & Co., £8.99, waterstones.com 

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Book Review: Breathing Space: Iranian Women Photographers

© Newsha Tavakolian. ‘Imaginary CD Covers’, from the series ‘Listen’, 2010

In 2001, Anahita Ghabaian founded the Silk Road Gallery in Tehran, Iran’s first exhibition space dedicated to contemporary photography. Opening at the height of Khatami’s presidency over 20 years ago – when social controls were relaxed, civil society flourished, and women started to push the boundaries of Iran’s restrictive Sharia law – the Silk Road Gallery has occupied an important place in Tehran’s rich cultural life ever since. The gallery soon took up two sites in Tehran and Anahita is now about to open a new space with a garden in the Iranian capital.

Ghabaian, then, is well-qualified to curate Breathing Space: Iranian Women Photographers, a book of 23 women photographers of different ages spanning three generations, whose work provides a female lens through which to see Iran.

This is not the image that many in the West have of Iran, where recent protests have highlighted the depth of repression and discrimination against women. After Mahsa Jina Amini’s death last September at the hands of the Morality Police, the many demonstrations that swept Iran were led by women. 

© Yalda Moaiery. A female police officer leads two young women into a police station. These women were arresting for not wearing Islamic hijab. Tehran, 2006.

Speaking to Ghabaian in Tehran, I ask her how, given this institutionalised discrimination, it is possible these Iranian women photographers can produce work, exhibit and even find fame both home and abroad.

Ghabaian explains the complexity. ‘In Iran no one accepts all the restrictions,’ she says. ‘There are many difficulties and challenges. And because of this, artists circumvent the restrictions in order to say what they have to say, to push the limits of what is possible.’ Iranian art has traditionally always used metaphor and symbols to circumvent the restrictions of the many dictatorships, invaders and tyrants that have dogged Iran’s long history. And the work of these female photographers is the latest development of this particularly Iranian sensibility. 

The book starts with the black and white images of Hengameh Golestan, whose images of the first ever Women’s Day March in Tehran in 1979 show how actively women resisted mandatory hejab laws when first proposed by Ayatollah Khomeini on taking power after the revolution in 1979. ‘This picture really shows their opposition: everywhere you look, there are just women, protestors,’ says Ghabaian. ‘It also shows you that Iranian women have never accepted their lot, have always protested and resisted. This is an important moment in history. I fought hard to include the three photos by Hengameh; many people photographed these protests but in my opinion, her pictures capture those days the best of all.’

© Shadi Ghadirian. From the series ‘Like Every Day’, 2000-2001.

Other photographers showcased are: Nazli Abbaspour; Hoda Afshar; Atoosa Alebouyeh; Hoda Amin; Mina Boromand; Solmaz Daryani; Gohar Dashti; Maryam Firuzi; Shadi Ghadirian; Ghazaleh Hedayat; Rana Javadi; Mahboube Karamli; Gelareh Kiazand; Yalda Moaiery; Sahar Mokhtari; Tahmineh Monzavi; Pargol E. Naloo; Malekeh Nayiny; Mahshid Noshirvani; Ghazaleh Rezaei; Maryam Takhtkeshian; and Newsha Tavakolian.

‘We have three generations of women photographers, and what’s interesting,’ declares Ghabaian, ‘is that the first generation – Hengameh, Mahshid Noshirvani, Rana Javadi – they talk only of public things: what happened in the street, what happened in the university, what happened in the factory. They don’t talk of themselves. The second generation – such as Shadi Ghadirian, Newsha Tavakolian and Gohar Dashti – speak more of the condition of women but without really talking about themselves. The third generation – such as Atoosa Alebouyeh and Ghazale Hedayat – are only speaking of themselves, and their work speaks to what they have inside them. And this difference in expression and seeing, this development, is really interesting. This is a generational thing.’

‘We have come out of pure reportage and documentary and gone towards a sort of staged self-expression,’ pinpoints Ghabaian. ‘This is an artistic book but it’s also a historical book.’

Breathing Space, £40, published by Thames & Hudson. Available from Hatchards and other book shops from 6 July 2023.

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Pupils, Anna and Helisent

Years five to eight listened to Robin discuss her passion for detective fiction and how it shaped her experience as a writer.

She also treated the pupils to a reading of the summary of her new book The Ministry of Unladylike Activity, which is based on a young group of upcoming spies who pose as evacuees to solve a murder set in a country manor house in the 1940s.

After the reading, pupils were tasked to create their own murder mystery adventure in groups. Before this, they completed a quiz to see which character in Robin’s book they were most similar to.

One pupil, Anna Beharrell, said: ‘I thoroughly enjoyed her visit and loved every second of it!’

Another pupil, Helisent Graham-Paul, said: ‘I was so excited to learn about how she comes up with all her ideas; her talk lived up to that expectation and more.’

Deputy Head of Christ College Brecon, Harry Mackridge, also commented that it was great to see the children engaged and thinking creatively.

More about Robin Stevens

Robin grew up in California before moving to England when she was three years old.

She studied at Cheltenham Ladies College and later secured a MA in crime fiction at Warwick University.

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Calum Harris On The 20 Minute Vegan

Calum Harris (Photo by Haarala Hamilton)

Hi Calum, thanks for joining us today! How are things going with you?

Hello hello. Thank you for having me more like! Things are great – nice and busy, basically.

For those that don’t know, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Sure, the short story is I’m a 24-year-old bloke called Calum. I’ve been cooking recipes for around four years now, and uploading what I make onto social media, including Instagram and TikTok. My aim has always been to make cooking simple, and work to what people can actually do, as opposed to what looks fancy.

Off the back of that, I ended up on TV cooking in a competition show hosted by Jamie Oliver (my Tele Dad, I like to call him), and wrote a cookbook called The 20-Minute Vegan – and as you might have gathered by that last sentence, yes, I’m vegan. But I’m not gonna preach to you, I just want to make a good bit of food that just so happens to be vegan.

 

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You released your first cookbook this year, The 20 Minute Vegan. What can you tell us about it?

I mean luckily, it does what it says on the tin (or, in this case, book). It’s a go-to book for those wanting to cook vegan for the first time, with recipes that can be made in 20 minutes, are actually easy to cook and are healthy too. And to top it off, everything used in the book can be found in your local supermarket, so there’s no faffing about trying to get weird ingredients in several supermarkets.

Do you have any favourite recipes from the book?

This is like when your mum or dad is asked who their favourite child is. They feel bad for answering but they do have a favourite. Mine are the Butter “Chicken” (well actually tofu) Curry, the Proper Peasto Pasta and the Bossman Mushroom Kebabs. I love proper meals, ones that you crave after a long day when you get home or a night out if you’re into that.

The 20 Minute Vegan recently became a UK bestseller – what was your reaction when you found out?

That was nuts. For me, I’m well aware that social media numbers are different to real life numbers. There are chefs that have come before me that couldn’t make that jump successfully into books, and there’s some that have absolutely smashed it out the park. For me, as much as I had an advantage with my following, I wanted to write a great book, first and foremost. One that people could pick up if they didn’t know me, and enjoy reading and cooking from.

It was genuinely the biggest relief seeing that come into fruition, considering this is my debut cookbook. And I was over the moon to see it actually make its way onto the charts.

 

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You’ve built a very loyal social following in just a few years (we actually found you through Instagram). What’s your relationship with social media like and how did you get into content creation?

I just love art, really, wherever it ends up coming from. That sounds quite snobby I’m aware, but I love watching content on social media, films, reading and especially music. So for me, I just wanted to create content. When I went vegan in 2018, I noticed a lack of younger presence in the cooking scene, especially from a vegan’s perspective. So I thought I’d give it a go, and see how far I could go. I didn’t think any of this and the way it’s happened would occur. At all. And you don’t really.

Which goes onto my relationship with social media. That’s like a skill that you get 1mm better at each day of dealing with. I’ve had years of dealing with anxious feelings if a post gets zero likes, if a post doesn’t perform well or if a negative comment comes in. I think what has helped the most is realizing that no matter what stage you’re at in your career, we’re all giving it a go and we’re all pretty much clueless. The more I think about that, the easier it becomes to create something I’m truly happy with, rather than pleasing the platforms I’m on.

And what’s it like seeing your followers making your dishes?

It’s the best feeling in the world. And one I don’t want people to think I take for granted. I am starting to get to a point where I physically cannot share every recreation of a recipe, which is insane that we’re at this level, but it’s also something I want people to feel like they’re being seen by me when they cook something of mine and share it. So if you’re reading this, and you cooked a recipe of mine, yes. I saw it. I loved it.

 

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When did you first become interested in food?

It started when I was around 15. I wasn’t overweight but I wasn’t comfortable with my weight, so I decided to set myself the goal of losing a little bit. For me, the answer didn’t rely purely on the gym; I started to find that what we put into our bodies was the biggest factor in healthy and sustainable weight loss. So people like Jamie Oliver and Joe Wicks definitely helped on that path to inspire me and teach me how to cook.

Who would be your dream person to cook for?

Oh, Harry Styles. Harry Styles. Too much pressure to cook for a chef. Next question.

What are your top three tips for anyone getting into cooking?

1. Have fun with it. Cooking is a therapeutic thing for me, and I believe others can feel that way to by not thinking too deeply, and just getting stuck in.
2. Work to your skillset. I’m a home cook, not a chef. So I try and make cooking as easy as can be, with minimal equipment. When I started cooking for the first time, I worked on dishes that I could make in one pan and that were quick.
3. Make something you actually want to eat. Easy, right? Don’t spend hours making some slow cooked stew that you have no idea if you’ll like. Make a burger, a stir fry, a bowl of pasta, a salad. Why not?

 

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Vegan food has become a lot more mainstream in the last decade – do you think there are any lingering misconceptions surrounding it?

I do. People don’t like two things; being told what to do, and doing things that put them out of their way. I’m trying to do neither. And focus on making that process of vegan cooking easy for anybody to do, vegan or not.

I also think people assume vegan food is too expensive, not nutritious and not quick to make. If only there was a cookbook to solve that, eh? (I’m sorry that was shameless self promotion.)

My final point is that – and this is sticking up for the non-vegans for one – is that us vegans need to stop making shock-value dishes. There are great meat and dairy alternatives out there to make like-for-like dishes to the counterpart, but I think our focus is to make new dishes, that are beautiful with bold flavour, that just so happen to be vegan.

Any vegan restaurants you’d recommend in the UK?

My go-to is a Middle Eastern called Bubala in Soho. Unreal veggie and vegan food, including the smoothest hummus about and charred mushroom skewers that I cannot ever replicate as good as they do it. I’m also a fan of Club Mexicana, they’ve got a few around London, as well as Tofu Vegan, which makes delicious Asian food.

Does sustainability ever influence your cooking?

Sustainability does influence my cooking; I’m trying to use up ingredients that won’t get used fully for one recipe I’m creating, and I’ll often use it for something that I don’t end up filming. I’m also buying a lot less, and aiming to buy ingredients in season, because it does genuinely taste different. I didn’t think it mattered at first, but trust me. It does.

 

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Top three ingredients of all time?

1. Miso paste – I love umami hints of flavour in my dishes. Meat would take care of that, but I don’t wanna hurt a cow’s feelings by eating that, so I use miso paste to recreate that same depth of flavour. It works wonders in all kinds of cuisines.
2. Lime – They have saved dishes for me by bringing freshness and a bit of sourness to them. Add a squeeze of lime juice to the top of your chilli, to finish of your noodles or as a base to roast your veggies with.
3. Salt – People need to understand: seasoning your food is the key to making excellent food, especially vegan food. Salt is your saviour, and also helps to change the behaviour of certain ingredients. Like for example, if you have sliced tomatoes for a sandwich or salad, by salting them before adding them in, you draw out any excess water from the tomatoes, making a more intense tomatoey flavour and also stopping your sandwiches from going soggy. You’re welcome, that’ll be £5 for that tip.

What’s in your fridge right now?

A lot of tofu, oat milk, a bag of carrots for some reason, gochujang, miso paste, a Brita jug because I’m a water snob, a load of bottled sauces, limes, a half eaten packet of rocket and some grapes. I’ve just eaten some of those grapes.

Quite a controversial debate here… air fryer or oven?

I am a purist, and a loyal babe, so I’ll always choose an oven. I do think that an air-fryer is technically a small oven, but it is a cool little piece of kit and it can make dishes quicker than an oven can. It all depends on if you have the kitchen counter space and the budget to get one, and if you have both, make sure you actually use it. (My book doesn’t rely on an air-fryer to make any of the recipes just to help your decision with that.)

 

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Do you have any pet hates in the kitchen?

People who don’t season their food. So much so it is worth saying it twice. I’m also a messy cook, so I feel like people will have a pet hate of me when I cook for them. However it really feels rigid and robotic to tidy as you go. As much as it makes sense, and yes it’s great, I don’t want to multitask, let me cook!

And finally, how do you think we can live a life in balance?

Don’t walk on stilts. A joke for you there.

Serious answer, enjoy everything that’s present to you. Don’t dwell on where you need to be, don’t think back on what you’ve done. Just take a step every day, and make small minor changes to create the life you want. Part of that process includes not beating yourself up if you slip and make a mistake. Humans are flawed, just move on. That’s really the ethos you should try and engrain in my opinion to actually feel a sense of balance.

Find Calum

calumharris.com | @calumharris on Instagram | @calumharris_ on TikTok

The 20 Minute Vegan by Calum Harris

You can pick up a copy of The 20 Minute Vegan now at various bookshops across the UK, see the list of retailers here

Featured image: Calum Harris (Photo by Haarala Hamilton)

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Independent Bookshop Week 2023: Everything You Need To Know

First launched in 2006, Independent Bookshop Week is part of the Booksellers Association’s Books Are My Bag campaign, and celebrates the value of our indie bookshops across the UK. The Booksellers Association, which represents over 95 percent of booksellers in the UK and Ireland, works to provide support and new ideas to drive customers towards our indies – including the likes of National Book Tokens and Books Are My Bag. The latter offers activities and campaigns throughout the year like Indie Book of the Month, Bookshop Day, the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards and, of course, Independent Bookshop Week. In 2016, 867 independent bookshops were members of the Booksellers Association; in 2022, this number reached 1,072. 

When Is Independent Bookshop Week 2023?

Independent Bookshop Week will return this summer on 17 June, lasting until 24 June 2023. That said, in celebrating independent booksellers and their shops, highlighting the crucial role they play on the highstreet, the goal is to encourage shoppers to shop small beyond the dedicated week.

‘Independent Bookshop Week is one of our favourite times of the year,’ says Emma Bradshaw, Head of Campaigns at the Booksellers Association. ‘The aim of the week is to celebrate the passion, creativity and incredible drive of independent booksellers, and remind everyone how crucial they are to our high streets and local communities. With events, exclusives, special initiatives, bookshop crawls and more activities already confirmed, we can’t wait to reveal further campaign plans over the next few months, and for everyone to join in the celebrations during Independent Bookshop Week and beyond!’

What Will Happen In Independent Bookshop Week?

A range of events will occur commemorating IBW across the nation, with almost 700 independent bookshops already confirmed to take part – the highest number to date. 

The official ambassadors are Maggie O’Farrell (author of Hamnet, winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction), Rev Richard Coles (radio presenter and author of Murder Before Evensong), and Paterson Joseph (actor and author of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho), who will all be appearing at events across the country.

(L-R) Paterson Joseph, Maggie O’Farrell and Rev Richard Coles are this year’s Independent Bookshop Week ambassadors. (© Faye Thomas/Sophie Davidson/NMP Live Ltd.)

Oxford residents can enjoy the Oxford Bookshop Crawl, set to take place on 24 June, whisking guests on an afternoon adventure exploring Oxford’s beautiful bookshops, meeting fellow book lovers, swapping recommendations, purchasing new books, and stopping for tea and cake (of course). 

Likewise, over in Devon, the award-winning indie, The Bookery, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this IBW, with a host of events, activities and workshops, a new bookshop extension, and special guests Michael Morpurgo, Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre.

Nationwide, IBW celebrants can also expect:

• The return of National Book Token’s High Five for Bookshops, helping customers access a free £5/€5 National Book Tokens e-Gift card to bring back and spend in store
• Bookshop crawls, which individual book lovers are welcome to organise; the Books Are My Bag bookshop search tool is a helping hand planning your route
• ‘Indie Twinning’, a scheme bringing independent publishers and independent bookshops together to plan new events
• New and exciting displays in bookshop windows
• A new exclusive poem celebrating independent bookshops written by Dean Atta, published on Wednesday 21 June
• A special children’s bag celebrating 20 years of Cressida Cowell’s How To Train Your Dragon
• A special edition of Rev Richard Coles’ new novel A Death in the Parish available exclusively from independent bookshops

Dean Atta will write a new poem for IBW celebrating our indies. (© Thomas Sammut)

‘All hail independent bookshops, without which our bookshelves and our high streets would be so much the poorer,’ says Maggie O’Farrell. ‘Everyone who can, should visit their local bookshop during IBW, to celebrate these temples to reading, and perhaps discover something new to read.’

‘There is no place better than an independent bookshop, not least because they are often home to an excellent bookshop dog!’ Rev Richard Coles says. Paterson Joseph adds: ‘What I’ve learnt this year as debut novelist is how fantastic independent bookshops are.  I’ve met the most wonderful people and the most enthusiastic readers there. One of my favourite independents is New Beacon Books in London – they have been an advocate for Black literature for many years. I look forward to celebrating bookshops this Independent Bookshop Week.’

Stay up to date via Instagram, @BooksAreMyBag and at booksaremybag.com

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© Barney Jones/Fitzcarraldo Editions.

This article was originally published in September 2022.

Daisy Hildyard On Writing For The Climate Crisis

Daisy Hildyard’s first novel Hunters in the Snow received the Somerset Maugham Award, and her essay The Second Body won The White Review’s Book of The Year 2018. Her second novel Emergency discuss the relationships between people and ecosystems in the wake of the climate crisis – through a surprising setting of 1990s rural Yorkshire. Daisy Hildyard is one of the brilliant authors lined up for London Literature Festival as part of its climate strand. She talks to us about what she’s writing now, how she copes with the enormous responsibility of climate change, and Greta Thunberg.

How are you doing? What are you up to at the minute?

Oh man, that’s not a question I’ve been asked for a while! I’ve been working on some new fiction about a Greenland shark, and some set in London. And then an essay which deals with conflict in the environment, how war changes landscapes.

That’s really interesting. Have you been talking to many people about this to research it? 

So for the essay, I’ve been speaking with people who monitor conflict in the environment, analysts or people who works for NGOs, who use very complex satellite technologies to look at landscapes from a distance and try to work out what’s happening in them.

One memorable conversation I had was with somebody who works for Amnesty, who is creating a report into the bombing of the theatre in Mariupol in Ukraine – and she was talking about how they work out what kinds of explosives went off, what happened in the theatre, what happened to the people in the basement, etcetera. They do this by looking at all different kinds of things that you wouldn’t necessarily expect, like the ways the trees had snapped in the square outside, the way bombs leave marks on the snow. Different kind of archives, traces of evidence on the landscape. 

I’ve found myself really interested in how that technology affects the way the analysts look at these occurrences… Their feelings about it. I think she finds it really hard to look at this stuff every day and then kind of… close the laptop and, you know, go and see mates or something, and it’s just a weird experience of being in the world that I think connects with a lot of us.

And we’re obviously here to talk about the London Literature Festival – can you tell me a little bit about what you’ll be doing?

So I’ll be doing a panel with Jessie Greengrass, who’s also written a novel that is using fiction to think about the climate crisis – and human relationships with the climate crisis, plus the environment more generally. My novel Emergency is not about the climate crisis in the way you may think about it – as some kind of fireball, flash flood or disaster, but told through stories about humans and animals in a small area of rural Yorkshire. And then Jessie’s novel is a dystopian fiction. So we’ll explore how we live with climate change and how we respond to it. 

I actually wondered how you translate environmental concern to a reader? 

I guess that’s always the job or task for someone who wants to write fiction, how you make people want to turn the page… You have to persuade people to spend time with it. Even though I write and think and talk a lot about the environmental crisis, I still find it hard when people have this kind of lecturing mentality because, you know, it’s just hard to think about it all the time. Like, you know, you’ve got to get the dinner on – just real life. 

Your essays also talks a lot about the significance of individual actions – like, if I pop down to the shop and get a Fanta there’s a political significance to that choice. How do you think we grapple with that much responsibility?

Yeah, like how delicious is a Fanta? Do I really, really want it? I don’t know… How do you sort of deal with that? Do you have a way of explaining it to yourself – or habits that you’re changing – or do you just try not to think about it? I feel like there’s this huge range of different ways that people respond to it.

I suppose we all need to find an individual answer alongside a collective one to that dilemma.

Yeah, and to do it responsibly, and with consideration – but also to find a way to have a really joyful, flourishing life, rather than for it to be a question of painful denial. Because that is never going to happen or work, I guess.

You’re very immersed in this field, you’ve got a PhD in the history of science, I wondered if all the research you did for Emergency and The Second Body, not to mention the novel you’re writing now – has it changed how you understand and interact with animals?

I do come from a meat farming background. I have a respectful working relationship with animals. I’m not vegetarian – although I don’t eat a lot of dairy, and I don’t particularly like the meat industry. And then the more I think about the fact that I don’t particularly like the dairy or meat industries, the more I find it harder to justify those practices. I pay a bit more attention to animals, I’m just more aware of their worlds going on around my world. Not only in this sort of nature – scenes of cows and trees in a landscape – but also inside my flat or whatever. That every surface has life on it. There’s something at stake everywhere. 

A kind of expansion of your interior world?

Or maybe an expansion in my understanding of the exterior world? But yeah, definitely. Maybe in some sense it’s a diminishing sense of the importance of my own consciousness, because it’s like… you notice all this other stuff that’s going on outside. It’s nice to also notice all this liveliness everywhere. 

A bit of a morbid turn but I found your language around animals, particularly dead animals, interesting, like how you refer to it more as bodies and corpses. You don’t often hear that framing.

Yeah, I think there’s a bit of a movement towards that, even in academic circles. We used to refer to animals as ‘it’, but increasingly we’d give animals some personal pronoun. I think these little changes in language can be a sign – a hopeful sign. I think. 

Do you think there’s an ability in language to change our perspective on the world around us?

I hope so. Certainly one thing among other things; I wouldn’t say, you know, the novel is going to solve the climate crisis. But yeah, I have faith in language to do some change in its own way. 

And in terms of the power of your own language, if someone were to read Emergency, is there one thing you’d want them to take away from it?

I think the sense of the liveliness of everything. That everything has a story going on around it. Almost every novel I’ve ever read, and I love to read novels, has a very contracted world, and there’s so much that these stories leave out. But in any story, there’s other stuff going on, you know – minor characters have stories going, and then also the plants, animals, you know, the earth itself. But we don’t habitually notice them. And it’s just such a delight to notice them. So I hope that within and beyond my novel, whether it’s the contents of the novel or just the feeling of busyness and liveliness, that’s what people feel and think about. Because it’s great. It’s really, really nice. 

And any advice on living a life in balance?

Slowing down and giving things up can be really nice. There’s always a pressure to progress and achieve in our culture. I think that sometimes giving up and slowing down is really fun – and really good for everything and everybody. Maybe I’m just innately lazy.

Anyone who has written a book – let alone multiple – can’t claim that they’re lazy. 

Oh, I’ve done this over a very long time. And it’s what I like doing. So it’s a different thing. 

Finally, anything you’re looking forward to at London Literature Festival?

It’d be amazing to see Greta Thunberg… I’d love to see her on tour, too.  

Yes, I reckon that’d be a kind of gig crowd. 

Definitely. What’s admirable about her is that she’s so clearly not interested in that, but just the contents of what she’s saying, how she gets it across. And that’s impressive in anybody, but particularly in such a young person. 

Daisy Hildyard will be talking about the imminent emergencies of everyday life with fellow author Jessie Greengrass at London Literature Festival. Catch them as part of the festival’s climate strand at the Southbank Centre on Saturday 29 October.

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