Mary Ann Shaffer

‘Absolutely perfect and satisfying, and when you finish it you sit around wishing that you could find another book just like it’

Stephanie Meyer

Now for my grim news. You asked me how work on my new book is progressing. Sidney, it isn’t.

. I can’t seem to dredge up any sense of proportion or balance these days, and God knows one can’t write humour without them.

You know how I love talking about books, and you know how I adore receiving compliments. I should be thrilled

Charles Lamb made me laugh during the German Occupation, especially when he wrote about the roast pig.

Because there is nothing I would rather do than rummage through bookshops.

I have gone to them for years, always finding the one book I wanted – and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted.

Then, I further discovered, Lamb offered money to help Hunt’s family – though he himself was as poor as a man could be. Lamb also taught Hunt’s youngest daughter to say the Lord’s Prayer backwards. You naturally want to learn everything you can about a man like that.

Come to that, how does he know where Susan and I are staying? What trains we are taking? All his flowers have been awaiting me on my arrival. I don’t know whether to feel flattered or hunted.

Are you taking notes? You should – a publisher should send not just one reader’s copy to a bookshop, but several, so that all the staff can read it, too.