Clare Chambers
@ClareDChambers
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Novelist, optimist and nice person (non-practising). Small Pleasures 🍊- UK: July 2020, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, US: Oct 2021, Custom House.
Joined January 2017
Our son, who lives in Brisbane, fully 10,000 miles out of earshot, has just sent our daughter, who lives under our roof, some bagpipes.
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My daughter announced at about 9pm last night that she needed a costume for #WorldBookDay at school today. “I’ve got to go as an adjective.” .She is 27.
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My lovely mum is 90 today. She has dementia now, but somewhere inside her is a young woman, full of excitement and hope for the future.
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@barristerlawusa She plays clarinet and sax. Her brother and his (Scottish) fiancée have challenged her to learn the bagpipes for their wedding in 2026. Day 1 on the chanter was brutal. 😂.
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Unprecedented scenes at Book Group last night. All of us had read the book and a brief discussion ensued. (Everyone loved it .)
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This really is the stuff of dreams. Anna Maxwell Martin = perfect 😍.
We are thrilled to share the news that @ClareDChambers’ novel #SmallPleasures has been optioned for TV by @shypunkproductions, and will be starring @annamaxwellmartin!. We cannot wait to see Clare’s brilliant novel brought to life on TV 🍊🍊🍊.
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This has never happened to me before. I can’t believe my luck. 😮.
Thrill of the day: seeing @ClareDChambers and #SmallPleasures hitting @thetimes bestseller list! . @wnbooks @GreeneandHeaton 🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊
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Those lovely people @orionbooks have created this gorgeous hardback of Small Pleasures with endpapers, head and tail bands, ribbons and very probably bells too. There are some seasonal recipes from the desk of Jean Swinney. Just in time for Christmas. 🍊🍊🍊
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I’ve signed 4000 copies of Shy Creatures at the amazing Hachette distribution centre today and I no longer recognise my own name.
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I’m celebrating the first day of Spring with the arrival of this beautiful proof from @wnbooks @orionbooks. I wish you could feel the embossing, but look at the silver lid! 💙🕊️🦡 🫖
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On the wall of our rented Cornish holiday cottage last week was a framed article about the trial of the driver in the Lewisham rail crash. In fiction this would be considered a coincidence too far.
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*smelling-salts emoji*.
The word-of-mouth sensation #SmallPleasures from @ClareDChambers has sold over 100,000 paperback copies! Congratulations Clare and to all who have supported 👏.
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After a few years with an empty nest, both my daughters are back at home. 🥰 Time to crack open a bottle of something!
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For kindle readers this is 99p at the moment. Add to your unmanageable backlog today! 🍊🧡
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Look at those sprayed edges! The art department @orionbooks has gone berserk with the orange aerosols! 🍊🍊🍊This special edition is available at Waterstones.
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There are 3 great moments in the life of a book and seeing finished copies for the first time is one of them. Thank you @wnbooks and @MrFeditor
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@exitthelemming Please could you thank him for his wonderful narration - performances, really - of the audiobooks of Trollope. He has brought them to life with such wisdom and sympathy. They’ll never be bettered.
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For my NY resolution I've set a daily limit of 15 minutes on Twitter. It’s Day 3 and in the gained time I’ve read two books. Blue Nights by Joan Didion and Leave the World Behind by @Rumaan Alam. I recommend this path to enlightenment.
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Untrammelled excitement here. Small Pleasures 🍊🍊🍊gets a mention in #TheBulletThatMissed! Thank you @richardosman. This is the most audacious piece of product placement since the cover deputised for a figleaf in a #Times article about naturism! #careerhigh
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This gorgeous US edition has just arrived from @customhousebks. 🇺🇸 Small Pleasures in the Big 🍏! I’d like to be modest and dignified about this but it’s too exciting!🗽
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My daughter’s Burmese partner who has never tasted marmalade has just tried my homemade effort. His verdict is “More fun than jam” and I am swaggering. 😎🍊
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The replies to this are so lovely - thank you x.
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Thanks so much @Waterstones for sharing this and also to @orionbooks for another beautiful cover. 💙💙💙.
Coming soon from @ClareDChambers! Set in 1960s Croydon, SHY CREATURES follows an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital who realises the immense talents of a mute, hermetic man brought in as a patient and decides to unravel his story. Pre-order now:
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@WomensPrize Absolutely elated to be on this list alongside so many brilliant books. Obviously celebrations here in the suburbs will be dignified and proportionate. 🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾.
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I don’t think readers realise how encouraging it is to get a message like this on a day when the words just won’t come. Thank you x.
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Yes indeed - eternal gratitude to all those people who helped to apply the defibrillating paddles of encouragment to the cooling corpse of my writing career. I am so, so thankful. ♥️.
Thank you @richardosman for the #SmallPleasures shout-out in the @ObsNewReview! And thank you - as ever - to @villagebooksdul and all the other bookshops who have supported @ClareDChambers over the past year. None of this would have happened without you 🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊
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It’s been so hard to keep this exciting news to myself. Can I peel off the gaffer tape now? 🤐.
🍊JUST BEYOND THRILLED to finally announce that #SmallPleasures by @ClareDChambers has been selected for @bbcarts new primetime TV book club Between the Covers!! The best news for the best book and author! And we have TWO @orionbooks novels on the list!🍊.
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Thank you. It’s a pleasure finding a new reader too!.
Just finished Small Pleasures by @ClareDChambers. What a wonderful book. I don't know how I haven't discovered Clare Chambers before, but one of life's greatest pleasures is finding an author you love who has books published you've not yet read!
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I’m more than somewhat delighted to see Shy Creatures rubbing shoulders with some of my own favourite books of 2024.
Congratulations to @ClareDChambers and her #ShyCreatures for making the @thetimes novel of the year list. And in such fine company ✨📚
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US publication day! 🇺🇸All I can hope is that it finds its way into the hands of those readers who will feel better for having read it.
Both a mystery and a love story, Small Pleasures by @ClareDChambers is an astonishing, keenly observed period piece about an ordinary woman whose dutiful life takes a sudden turn into a pitched battle between propriety and unexpected passion. Pick up your copy today. 🌸
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Booksellers are artful creatures and know all our weaknesses. Look at these beautiful endpapers and sprayed edges! Available to pre-order: resistance is futile!💙🦡🫖.
Following an art therapist in 1960s Croydon who decides to unravel the story of an immensely talented mute patient, SHY CREATURES is the immersive, multi-layered novel coming soon from @ClareDChambers. Signed Exclusive Edition with sprayed edges:
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If you like this kind of thing please consider ordering the gorgeous indie bookshop edition - link below 🥄🥄🥄💙.
It’s a beautiful, life-affirming story of love, family and the joy of freedom, perfect for fans of Sarah Winman and Maggie O’Farrell. Our Independent Bookshop Edition comes signed with a letter from Clare, available to pre-order here:
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Just tried to replicate this pose at home. Needed a couple of hardbacks and the large-print edition.
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Beautiful display in Canterbury Waterstones @WaterstonesRose. Writers' wildest dreams are made of this. Thank you! 🧡🧡🧡
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I’m very excited to see the US cover for Shy Creatures, here with the UK version. They make a lovely couple. Badgers! Birds! Tea! Thanks to @chevonnelbourne for the artwork. @WmMorrowBooks @MarinerBooks
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My new book, Shy Creatures, comes out at the end of the month. 🦡🦡🦡Advance apologies for an unseemly level of auto-trumpeting. For instance: Check out Clare Chambers: The Art Of Kindness at edbookfest
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I’ve just had beautiful finished copies of the US edition of #ShyCreatures which is out on November 12th @MarinerBooks.🦡🦡🦡🦡 I’m like a parent sending a child off on their travels - full of hope and fear!
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It was such a privilege to talk about #ShyCreatures with the brilliant Rachel Joyce last night @ToppingsBath. 💙💙
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Just started this by @ninastibbe and already annoying the rest of the household by repeatedly bursting out laughing and refusing to explain the joke. So, so funny.
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I'm inventing an app for writers struggling to finish their first draft. Called 'Novelists on a Train' - you swap works-in-progress and agree to finish off, or possibly murder, each other's book.
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Thank you @ianarchiebeck for this beautiful exhibition catalogue. This painting is like a memory of somewhere visited in childhood or a dream.
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This is only 99p on kindle and if you have set yourself an ambitious reading target for 2022 I can reassure you that it’s only about 200 pages and won’t hold you up for long!
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Lovely paperback cover from those artful creatures @orionbooks! Coming June 5th. They mean to part you from your money. Resistance is futile.
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I’m inventing a new low-budget gift voucher. It’s the opposite of an ‘experience day’ - you get a free pass to cry off one event in your diary without any recriminations. #stayingin.
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First outing for my new tank top and my daughter greets me “All right Wallace?”
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The lovely people at @wnbooks sent me this gorgeous print and now I’m thinking I need to re-decorate 🍊🍊🍊
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Two of my books are 99p on kindle all this month. It’s almost like they’re having a clear-out.
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This is 99p on kindle today only. Perhaps they’re having a pre-Christmas clear-out.
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At an event last night @WaterstonesCamb to discuss Shy Creatures, I had the delightful experience of coming face to face with my namesake @DrClareChambers Professor of Political Philosophy, with whom I am often confused online. We now have each other’s books!
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Beware of thorns! This is the beautiful jacket for the US edition of #SmallPleasures coming this autumn @customhousebks @WmMorrowBooks. More than somewhat excited!
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It’s “on the wireless” from today.🍊🍊🍊.
We cannot wait to hear the first episode of BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime with #SmallPleasures from @ClareDChambers!. Beginning tomorrow you can listen along on weekdays over the next fortnight. If you can't wait till then you can order a copy here:
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Twice a week in the name of healthy living I get up at the crack of nine to jog (shuffle) round my local park. If I drop dead during this, as sometimes feels likely, please let no one say ‘she died doing what she loved’.
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Reviews by other novelists are sometimes to be feared but this is everything I could have hoped for. Thank you!.
The great Clare Chambers Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers review – trauma unearthed
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I won’t tell anyone! *retweets furiously*.
@ClareDChambers Finished this today. I was so keen to finish the last 40+ pages that I hid in the stock cupboard at work till I’d read it all 🤫 It was amazing - thank you SO much for writing it. I’m telling my colleagues to read it now 😀
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I started off highlighting all the brilliant observations and one-liners but had to give up because there were so many. @ninastibbe makes being funny look easy, but that’s just because she’s very, very good at it. Thank you @VikingBooksUK for this huge treat!
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We can’t be experts in everything, but I make it my business to eat carrot cake wherever I go and after years of research I can confidently declare that The Best is to be found in the unlikely setting of the cafe at Guy’s Hospital Cancer Centre.
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'daring to be quiet'. This lovely review is the perfect way to celebrate the US publication of Shy Creatures. 🇺🇸@MarinerBooks 🦡🦡🦡.
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And there is an elegant Waterstones special edition with lovely endpapers, sprayed edges etc available to pre-order 🦡🦡🦡
Counting down the days until the release of SHY CREATURES, the wonderful new novel from @ClareDChambers, it’s a beautiful story about art, love, and family, and it’s set in 1960s Croydon to boot! 🎨📚
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Getting Published: what no one tells you. Clare Chambers
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This dates me tragically, but I think the look I have achieved here is Cyril Fletcher, That’s Life c.1975.
Huge thanks to the lovely @ClareDChambers for coming down to sign our copies of #SmallPleasures today, and humouring us by posing in #TheReadingChair There is such an exciting buzz building about this wonderful book, and it’s great to be a part of it. 🍊🍊🍊🍊#Waterstones
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This is a lovely review. I’m overjoyed.
I reviewed one of my favourite novels of the year. Clare Chambers had a whirlwind bestseller with Small Pleasures. Her new novel, Shy Creatures, is wise, beautifully measured and as compelling as you want fiction to be.
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Thank you @letticefranklin @wnbooks for these beautiful new editions of Helen Garner classics. This House of Grief - an unsparing and riveting account of an Australian murder trial - had me by the throat from the opening page. A masterpiece.
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Thanks Nina - I’m so happy to see these titles roused from their slumber, dressed in new finery and ready to meet people.
.#SmallPleasures was on my Books of the Year 2020. It’s great to see these lovely covers for the reissued backlist titles of @ClareDChambers. Thank you @Gdavieswilliams for sending. #bookpost
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I wasn't sure about this yellow art installation on the walls of Carcassonne - until I saw it from the one spot where it made sense. Now I'm wondering how to adapt it for a 1930s semi.
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Virgin birth? Inconceivable, surely… The story that shocked 1950s Britain via @YOU Magazine. This curious case was the seed that inspired my novel Small Pleasures.
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It was lovely to meet the festival goers of @HastingsbookFes, not least @franquinn. (I always carry a flattering pink light source with me to combat sallowness. ).
Lovely to meet one of my very favourite authors @ClareDChambers at @HastingsbookFes yesterday and hear all about her new book Shy Creatures. I don’t know why she’s bathed in pink light in this pic, she wasn’t at the time!
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You couldn’t really ask for a more sympathetic review than this in @nytimes. I think I appreciate these moments more now than if they had come early and easily.
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I'm going to be at Toppings in Edinburgh on Tuesday 1st October and then at St Andrew's on Wednesday 2nd talking about #ShyCreatures 🦡🦡🦡Details below. Please come and say Hello.
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Thank you @wnbooks for this perfectly themed gift. Tangerine marmalade for breakfast! And soaps “too precious ever to be used” 🍊🍊🍊
We are delighted to wish @ClareDChambers a happy publication day! . The beautifully written and remarkable story #SmallPleasures is out now 🍊.
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My daughter has come home after 3 years in beautiful #Myanmar having left a little of her heart behind 💔
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Filled with awe and optimism watching those 8 young geniuses on #UniversityChallenge. @amolrajan brought some great “favourite teacher” energy to the role too!.
Huge congratulations to #OurImperial University Challenge winners! 🥇 🎉 🙌. Incredible performance from Justin, Adam, Suraiya, and Sourajit - what a showdown! 👏. #OurImperial #ImperialMeansBusiness #UniversityChallenge
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Time to re-read the great David Lodge, the best comic novelist of our time. Changing Places for a proper laugh on every page, and Author Author for a brilliant portrayal of Henry James's insecurity and professional envy.
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@RachelMuers @EmmaHagestadt Excellent use of literary criticism as a tool to decode yesterday’s fiction.
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I won a little model of Parsley driving his car in a colouring competition when I was about 5. In terms of pure happiness I don’t think any achievement since has come close.
Parsley the Lion, Sage the Owl, Dill the Dog and Bayleaf the Gardener. Ivor Wood. c.1967.
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@RevRichardColes This sounds like my late mother-in-law’s attitude: “I didn’t have any anchovies so I used a fish finger”.
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I first read Mrs Dalloway when I was 19 and was underwhelmed. Just re-read it and found it much more poignant at 50+. (Reverse happened with Le Grand Meaulnes. Magical at 18 but by middle age the lost domain was indeed lost.) #amreading.
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This whole thread is most interesting. From now on I will be judging the bunching of fabric around men’s ankles with the same horror that my grandmother used to direct towards a half inch of visible petticoat.
King of Spain at the final day of Wimbledon. This looks great. Very rare to see this level of tailoring nowadays, even on the wealthy. So let's talk about some of the reasons why it's great. 🧵
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This, from @ianarchiebeck is full of treasures - not just the exquisite paintings but the notes on a vanished way of life. Wonderful.
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There is some book-selling sorcery afoot in Horsham!🍊🍊🍊.
We are now proud sellers of 430 copies of Small Pleasures in 3 weeks @ClareDChambers . This is remarkable because we have never sold so many copies of anything so fast, not even at Christmas. We would like to wholeheartedly 🙏🏻🙏🏻our lovely customers for their trust @orionbooks
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Eternal gratitude to Indies 💙.
No one has supported @claredchambers more than Indies, so we knew we had to create an Independent Bookshop Edition of SHY CREATURES. Signed, exclusive author letter & illustrated endpapers ✍️💌🥄 Imagine that on your bookshelf – STUNNING 🫶 🔗
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Deal: A Dry Spell #Amazon For kindle users this is 99p this month. The six or so hours of free time needed to read it is sadly not included in this offer. But adding it to your library is an act of optimism which deserves recognition.
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Look at our stunning reissues for @ClareDChambers . From the acclaimed author of #SmallPleasures our stunning backlist have been given gorgeous new covers in time to make your holiday TBR list!. Which is your favourite? 🍋⛱
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I’ve always wanted to live in an Oscar Wilde play and now I do!
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I wrote this in my twenties when a bad back was still something that happened to other people. It’s 99p this month - better value than almost everything except unbranded ibuprofen. Deal: Back Trouble #Amazon.
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I remember when proofs use to have all the design appeal of a school exercise book. #YouAreHere is a work of art. How are you going to improve on it for the real thing @MrFeditor ? Make the boards out of Kendal Mint Cake?
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I’m looking forward to this event at @wstones_horsham on 25th September. Please come and say hello!.
I have just finished reading the absolutely glorious Shy Creatures @ClareDChambers . It’s one of those books which you stay up to finish and want to wake the world up to tell them to read it. Don’t forget our event with this remarkable author on the 25th September @HachetteUK
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Thank you @ianarchiebeck for the beautiful Christmas card. Your paintings of the suburbs are so haunting and dreamlike - a light in the darkness.
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