On a wall in writer and literary agent Dyan Blacklock’s kitchen hangs a small watercolour, rendered in inky blues, of two people sleeping blissfully in a boat on a starry night. Its feeling of warm, enveloping magic is characteristic of the work of its artist, children’s illustrator Kim Gamble. Gamble was a close friend of… Continue reading Literary Life: an interview with agent Dyan Blacklock

What knowledge is worth having? Sixteen year old Adele asks herself this in crime writer Malla Nunn’s YA debut, after her room mate calls her ignorant. The insult smarts all the more because it comes from Lottie Diamond, who is what Adele calls a third-class girl. A bottom-shelf girl. A girl with whom someone like… Continue reading Review: When the Ground is Hard, by Malla Nunn

Harry Potter will be eleven forever. Despite the million or so words that follow the event of his eleventh birthday, in which he grows and masters spells and vanquishes his enemy, the real magic of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series—the storybook magic, that is—is contained within the first two acts of the very first book.… Continue reading The Fine Print