Writing exclusively for our #PenguinCooks series, the Consider the Fork author takes us on a tour of her kitchen, and the utensils she can't do without (even if they're being used in ways you may not expect.)

Potato mashers, I find, are fairly useless for mashing potatoes.  It doesn’t matter whether they are the sort that look like bent spatulas or the ones that resemble a griddle with a handle attached.  Unless the potatoes have been cooked to watery oblivion – in which case the mash won’t be good, anyway – there are always some lumps that get missed. As you chase them round the pan, the potato gets overworked and turns gluey.  The potato ricer is far superior.  It gives you lump-free mash every time.  It’s also a satisfying thing to use, as the potato falls through the metal disk in a cloud of white specks.

Yet, I somehow hang on to my potato masher, which remains in my overstuffed utensil jar alongside wooden spoons and tongs, rice paddles and strainers.  Maybe it’s because, as with so much else in my kitchen, it reminds me of my mother.  And, making a cake one day, I made the happy discovery that while not very effective for mashing potatoes, it is a simply brilliant device for mashing bananas.

Our kitchens teem with objects whose best use was never imagined by the manufacturers. Someone told me recently that they use a melon baller for getting the hard bit out of pear cores.  My rolling pin gets used for everything from opening coconuts to bashing praline to smithereens. One of my favourite American food magazines, Cook’s Illustrated, prints endless reader’s tips along these lines. For example, use a corkscrew for a ‘safer way to pit avocado’! Or 'organise your herbs and spices in an over-the-door shoe organiser'!

Though comical, I admire the can-do spirit of these improvised techniques. In a funny way, they are true to the original spirit of inventiveness that gave us all the kitchen utensils we now depend on.  When I was researching my book Consider the Fork, I started to see that even technologies as obvious as a fork for eating with or a pot for boiling, were not always with us. It took lateral thinking from the first people who adopted cooking pots to think it was worth experimenting with protecting food from the blast of the fire with clay.  I like to think it’s the same sort of creative mindset that looks at a chopstick and sees the perfect tool for unjamming coffeebeans stuck in a grinder.

Bee Wilson is the author of Consider the Fork: A History of How we Cook and Eat, available now in paperback. Bee also writes the highly popular Kitchen Thinker column for The Sunday Telegraph's Stella magazine, for which she has been named food journalist of the year three times by the Guild of Food Writers. Find Bee on Twitter here.

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Cooking from Penguin's Great Food series

Penguin Cooks: Food and the young Jane Austen

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson - review

Paperback: Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson (Penguin, £9.99)

Charlie Parker, Penguin and foodie, explores the notion of nostalgic dishes, "vintage food" and some rather lovely old cookbooks in the second of our Penguin Cooks series. Bon appétit.

There is something to be said about the nature of a recipe. It can become a family heirloom - passed down from generation-to-generation.  Sometimes it’s an object of pride – “no-one can make it like my grandmother makes it”. Other times an object of awe – as in the awe experienced when attempting to make one of Adriano Zumbo’s macaron recipes.

I recently stumbled upon my Great Nan’s recipe notebook – dog-eared and stained. It contained cuttings of classic recipes such as 'Kidney and bacon bake' and 'Lamb's tongues in cider'. This particular heirloom, along with my Nan’s vintage Raleigh, is something I will treasure forever.

My partner also has his mum’s recipe notebook from which we get wonderful North American classics such as pancakes and Ukrainian classics like beet borscht. These enter the canon of our weekly cooking, and get their own place in our recipe books (with additions and tweaks that make them our own).

All this nostalgia got me thinking about "vintage food”: the garishly photographed recipe books of the 60s, tattered old preserves books, old French cooking books. All relevant again and making their way onto foodie bookshelves and blogs in their droves, Julia Childs and Elizabeth David household names once more. I remember when I was first introduced to Julia Childs via YouTube – “the gateway to French soufflés and cakes” indeed - what a revelation! 

The Pauper's Cookbook by Jocasta Innes, c. 1970

Here are a few blog posts that have praised some vintage recipes, taken from Penguin cookbooks. Firstly, we dip into The Pauper's Cookbook by Jocasta Innes with posts from That Lefty Food Blog (dealing mainly with soups) and The Vintage Cookbook Trials (also, incidentally, soup lovers).

Preserves for all Occasions by Alice Crang

Preserves for All Occasions by Alice Crang is another vintage favourite. As shown here by Come Step Back In Time and in a cracking chutney recipe, revived here by London Gardening Under Difficulty.

Elizabeth David's French Country Cooking

Plats du Jour or Foreign Food: A Penguin Handbook by Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd, Illustrated by David Gentleman (1958)

It probably says something about “vintage food” culture that Penguin published the Great Food Series in 2011 – and I have to say, along with the second hand Elizabeth David books, this collection is sitting proudly on the shelf at home.

My next vintage recipe to try? Well it’s a classic my Nan used to make all the time: blancmange with floating orange segments.

Charlie is Digital Marketing Manager at Penguin - you can find her blogging about food over here and quite often tweeting about food and other things over here.

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Penguin Cooks: Food and the young Jane Austen

Cooking from Penguin's Great Food series

The first in a series of Penguin Cooks blogs, here one of our resident food experts, Pen Vogler, tells us a little about the food featured in some of Jane Austen's earliest works.

Next year, Jane Austen’s juvenilia will be published in Penguin Classics for the first time. It may seem odd to be trumpeting this on a food blog, but the young writer delighted in culinary obsessions.  Foremost of foodies in the juvenilia is Charlotte Luttrell of Lesley Castle (written when Jane was 16) who, broiling, roasting and baking her sister’s wedding feast, is appalled to hear of the groom’s life-threatening accident; "Good God!" (said I) "you don't say so? Why what in the name of Heaven will become of all the Victuals?” Her sister is too afflicted to even eat a chicken wing.

The Georgian dinner table hosted some strange dishes and I wonder if the vile-sounding “fried Cowheel & Onion” which comes in her lampoon, The Visit, was a riposte to some adult attempt to make her eat it. A more acceptable treat is joked about by the twelve-year-old Jane whose The Beautifull Cassandra, “proceeded to a Pastry-cooks where she devoured six ices, refused to pay for them, knocked down the Pastry cook and walked away.”

Even I baulk at fried cow’s heel, but I have had a lovely time cooking my way through dishes that Jane mentions in her novels and letters.  As a young woman, left in charge of the housekeeping, she writes with relish about ordering braised ox-cheek and indeed it is gorgeous; melty and tender and just the thing for a cold day.

Braised Ox-Cheek, updated from an original recipe by Mrs Rundell, A New System of Domestic Cookery, 1806

Brought up, as she was, on meat from her father’s livestock, ‘haricot mutton’ is another Austen favourite that deserves to be restored to the contemporary table.  And who wouldn’t agree with her that “Good apples pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness”.

A Buttered Apple Tart, updated from an original recipe by Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, 1747

Dinner with Mr Darcy: Recipes inspired by the novels and letters of Jane Austen is published by Cico books, £16.99 in hardback.

Pen Vogler is the editor of Penguin's Great Food series. If you enjoyed the above, read more on her blog, Pen's Great Food Club, where she describes cooking with recipes from history. For more foodie updates, follow her on Twitter / @penfrompenguin

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Dinner with Mr Darcy: recreating the food of Jane Austen

This post is in Graham's words. We hope you like it. Happy listening.

1. The first song I’d like to talk about is Be-Bop-A-Lula by Gene Vincent. An amazing, amazing record, recorded 2-track at Capital Records. One of the reasons I joined Capital Records personally, apart from all the financial stuff that went on between my managers and the record company, was that I would join if they would leave me in the studio with the original two-track of Gene Vincent’s Be-Bop-A-Lula. It was the very first record I ever bought and unfortunately the day after I bought it I sat on it. It was a '78 and of course it shattered. Anyway, this is Be-Bop-A-Lula by Gene Vincent.

2. I was once talking to John Lennon about great rock’n’roll songs. And he and I both agreed that Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis was undeniably a great, great rock’n’roll song.

3. One of my personal favourite groups of course, is The Everly Brothers. I’ll never forget what their music did to me when I was fifteen years old, I was enthralled by their sound, by their harmony. I know they were brothers and I know they came from Kentucky but they had this unbelievable blend. In 1992 in Toledo, Ohio, I was in my hotel room and the phone rang. It was Phil Everly and he was talking to me. I said "Why are you talking to me in Toledo, Ohio?" And he said, “Well, you’re doing the show at the place that we’re going to play tonight. Would you like to come to the show?” So I went down with The Everly Brothers in their bus, to the venue. We had that rubber chicken at 5 o'clock after soundcheck that most rock’n’roll bands have and Don Everly looked at me and said “OK. What are you gonna sing with us?” And you know, I’m dying inside, it’s been my dream to sing with The Everly Brothers, and I have a cassette of me singing So Sad with The Everly Brothers and it thrills me to this day. So let’s play So Sad.

4. After World War II when 14 and 15 year old kids had nothing to do but kick a ball around, Lonnie Donnegan came into our lives on the BBC and Saturday Club on Saturday Morning. He was very influential with us because he provided a form of music that we could afford. If you had a cheap acoustic guitar and a washboard then you could put thimbles on your fingers and replicate the drums, and have a tea chest with a broom handle and a piece of string for the bass, and you could actually make decent music. So let’s play Rock Island Line by Lonnie Donegan.

5. There was a movie out when I was a kid, it was called Blackboard Jungle. Part of the musical track was this song by Bill Haley & The Comets called Rock Around The Clock. A few days before my fifteenth birthday, Bill Haley came to Manchester and I got tickets for me and Alan Clarke. We sat in the front row of the balcony and were absolutely blown away by the energy of The Comets. So why don’t we play, Rock Around The Clock.

6. I’m a lover of harmony. I mean it’s very obvious – I was in The Hollies, a great harmony band; Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds were both great harmony bands, but The Beach Boys were something else. I truly love this song, this is one of the finest songs on record. By The Beach Boys, it's God Only Knows.

7. I’d like to be a little selfish here. When Stephen Stills first played me Suite Judy Blue Eyes I couldn’t believe what a great song it was. It was 7.5 minutes, it was in four movements; a brilliant, brilliant song.

8. After I joined David and Stephen I kind of put The Hollies into the back of mind. You certainly don’t talk to your new girlfriend about your old girlfriend, you know, you just don’t do that. And so I spent many years kind of pushing them away in my mind. But recently, for the last 10 years I’ve been listening to The Hollies and, man, we were a fine band! Good harmonies, great energy. I remember this particular song because we had a manager, Michael Cohen. And he said to us one day, “I have this neighbour, this friend of mine, and she says that her son writes songs. Do me a favour - she keeps bugging me - why don’t you do down and just check out this kid.” So we went to this house and there’s this fourteen or fifteen year old kid and, you know, we were The Hollies! And we knew we were The Hollies. And I said “OK kid, what have you got?” And he said, “I’ve got this song and it goes like this…” *sings first lines of Bus Stop* And we knew The Hollies could cut a great record of it. So this is Bus Stop.

9. One day [David] Crosby told me that he had just come from a session at Abbey Road with The Beatles and they pushed two giant speakers left and right, opposite each ear, sat him in a chair, and David Crosby was one of the first people ever to hear this song: A Day In The Life.

10.  I’ve always been a tenacious man. I don’t give up easily. When I’m committed to something I do it with all my heart. This is a wonderful, wonderful song that we should all listen to and take to heart, this is Don’t Give Up by Peter Gabriel.

WILD TALES by Graham Nash is out now. For more information on the book why not follow Penguin on Twitter. For updates from Graham Nash, follow him on Twitter here.

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We've pulled out ten, frankly terrifying, facts from the book:

1. Antibiotics add, on average, 20 years to everyone's lives.
2. Since the manufacture of penicillin in 1943, for over 70 years we have survived extraordinary operations and life-threatening infections.  The truth is that we have been abusing them: as patients; as doctors; as travellers; in our food.
3. No new class of antibiotic has been discovered for 26 years and the bugs are fighting back.
4. 25,000 people a year in Europe alone are already dying of resistant bugs - killing as many people as road accidents.
5. 1,000 different bacterial species can be found within the human intestine alone. The total weight of bacteria within the human gut can be as much as 2 kg.
6. In 2011, 55 million people died out of a global population of 6.9 billion. About 10 million, roughly a fifth, of these deaths were from infectious diseases. 9.5 million were from low- and middle-income countries. Put another way, 40 per cent of all deaths in low income countries were a result of infectious diseases.
7. The most common way for spreading bugs is by your hands: we have between 2 and 10 million bacteria between fingertip and elbow. Wash your hands.
8. Without urgent action being taken, by 2043 we could be dying from common infections such as a sore throat
9. Today, over 35 million courses of antimicrobial drugs are prescribed by family doctors in England each year. Many of these cases are falsely prescribed or demanded by patients
10. Antimicrobials are used in some cases to fatten livestock for slaughter, but this can contribute to drug resistance for humans.

The Drugs Don't Work is available to buy as an eBook from today. It publishes in paperback on Thursday 19th September.

Read an extract from the book in The Sunday Times here.

Bookshops – we all love ‘em. And rightly so. Ken Follet says ‘A bookshop is like a teenage party: you walk in, look around, take your time, see what you fancy…then go for it.’, while Francesca Simon, author of the Horrid Henry titles, describes bookshops as ‘the closest we get to a magic kingdom on earth. They're a world of treats waiting to be devoured.’

Jamie Oliver with his tote bag

 But there are some worrying signs that the cherished bookshop is under threat.  A third of the country’s bookshops have closed in 10 years, which translates to a frankly alarming statistic of one closing every week – quite understandably, 88% of book buyers are concerned about this. The Books Are My Bag campaign aims to halt this process by celebrating the nation’s love of bookshops, calling on book lovers to show their support by visiting and purchasing a book from their favourite bookshop on Saturday 14th September (that's today folks). All publishers, including Penguin, are enthusiastically backing Books Are My Bag, and our lovely authors have also thrown their weight behind it.

For more information, do visit http://www.booksaremybag.com/ but in the meantime – have a look at some of our writers getting to grips with the campaign below.

Jennifer Saunders, 'Bonkers' about books 

Jojo Moyes with her favourite, National Velvet

Marian Keyes

Lesley Pearce

Cerys Matthews lends the campaign her voice

Jacqueline Wilson

In the final stop on Liane Moriarty's blog tour for THE HUSBAND'S SECRET, the author describes a secret of her own.

'When I was six, I had a secret. A big one. I remember the superior, impatient feeling it gave me. The way the words quivered at the back of my throat.  The secret made me feel kindly and patronising towards my younger sisters. Their darling, clueless little faces. They didn’t know. But I did know. All I had to do was speak and I could change their worlds. It was exhilarating, and also excruciating.

I went to school and shared the secret with my whole class. “Just don’t tell your little brothers and sisters,” I warned my classmates. The next day my teacher phoned my mother to say there had been complaints from parents. Some kids went home in tears. 

(I won’t reveal the secret here in case any gifted and talented four year olds are reading. I will say only this: it involved highly defamatory remarks relating to the identity of Santa Claus.)   

I had failed my first secret. I was deeply ashamed.   

It wasn’t my fault. Apparently the brain simply doesn’t like keeping secrets. Neuroscientist David Eagleman explains that secrets create a ‘neural conflict.’ One part of the brain is desperate to spill the beans. The other part wants to do the right thing. 

Research has found that carrying a secret actually feels like you’re carrying a physical burden. When people confess or write down their deepest held secrets, there are measurable decreases in their stress hormone levels. 

But if you write down your secret, it’s probably a good idea to then tear that piece of paper up into a thousand tiny pieces. Otherwise you might find yourself facing the same predicament I gave to my poor characters in my new novel, THE HUSBAND'S SECRET.'

THE HUSBAND'S SECRET by Liane Moriarty is out now. 

The blog tour may be over, but you can still read the reviews, Q&As and interviews from each of the blogs. Here's a handy day-by-day guide to help you out:

Day 1: Chicklit Club - Q&A with Liane

Day 2: The Love of a Good Book - Q&A and video

Day 3: LeeLeeLoves - Review

Day 4: Novel Kicks - Review and competition

Day 5: The Friendly Shelf - Review

Day 6: Dot Scribbles - Review and video

Day 7: Chick Lit Love - Review

Day 8: Random Things Through My Letterbox - Q&A

Day 9: Daisy Chain Book Reviews - Q&A

Recently we paired up with Fiction Records to find out about the music people listen to when they read. Fiction also asked some of their artists to find out about the books that made them, and what they listen to when they're reading. Here's what they said...

Jamie N Commons is the first to take us through his bookish and musical obsessions:

Books: 

1. Down and Out In Paris and London - George Orwell

2. Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

3. The Call of Cthulhu - H.P. Lovecraft

4. The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie

Music:

1. Spirit of Eden - Talk Talk

2. Wild Beasts - Smother

3. James Blake - James Blake

Or some quiet classical selections from Claude Debussy, Anton Bruckner, Edward Elgar, Beethoven etc. OR if you want to combine the two, I used to listen to the 1981 BBC Audio adaption of The Lord of The Rings constantly as a child, some really incredible music on that!"

Visit Jamie's website or find him on Twitter.

Next up we have Nick Mulvey, who has come up with a veritable feast of music and books for your delectation. Here are his choices:

Books: 
1. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
2. Trickster Makes This World - Lewis Hynde
3. The Big Sleep - Raymond Carver
4. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
5. One River - Wade Davis
6. Señor Vivo and The Coca Lords - Louis de Bernières
7. Musicophilia - Oliver Sacks
8. The Post Office - Charles Bukowski
9. The Faber Book of Science - Edited by John Carey
10. To Kill A Mocking Bird - Harper Lee

Music:
1. Steve Reich - Music For Mallet Instruments
2. William Basinski - Disintegration Loops
3. Arvo Part - Spiegel Im Spiegel
4. Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Seven Days of Falling
5. D'Gary - Kinetsa
6. Toumani Diabate - New Ancient Strings
7. Missa Luba - Sanctus
8. Kool Keith - Sex Style (Instrumentals)
9. Henry Purcell - 10 Sonatas in 4 parts
10. Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden

Find out more about Nick via his website and Twitter.

Thirdly, the choices of Charles Cave from White Lies:

Books:

1. Pan - Knut Hamsun

2. East Of Eden - John Steinbeck

3. Walden - Henry Thoreau

4. From The Holy Mountain - William Dalrymple

Music:

1. John Adams - The Dharma at Big Sur

2. Califone - Roots and Crowns 

3. Arthur Russell - Another Thought

4. Duke Ellington - Far East Suite

Follow White Lies on Twitter here | Take a look at their website

And last but not least, Steve Warby - Head of Fiction Records:

Books:

1. Despatches – Michael Herr

2. Nalda Said – Stuart David

3. Human Punk – John King

4. Let It Blurt: The Life And Times Of Lester Bangs

5. East Of Acre Lane: Alex Wheatle

Music:

1. Ballad Of Ray Suzuki – Looper

2. Death In Vegas – Girls

3. The Clash - White Man In Hammersmith Palais

4. Needles In The Camel’s Eye - Brian Eno

5. When The Levee Breaks – Led Zeppelin

6. I Am Made Of Chalk – Crystal Castles

7. Enter One – Sol Seppy

8. Gut Feeling – Devo

9. Brains – Lower Dens

10. I Wanna Be Your Dog – The Stooges

Here's the full playlist:

You can also listen to the Fiction Records playlist here | Check out Fiction's website | Follow them on Twitter

This month we're celebrating 20 years of Penguin Audio. That goes for audiobooks and music too...anything sound related. On that note, here's Tim Burgess, author of TELLING STORIES and lead singer of The Charlatans, telling us about the songs that made him.

Listen to the entire playlist on Penguin Spotify here, or click on the links and listen as you go along.

1. New Order – Leave Me Alone

My favourite band but the songs and their hierarchy shift and swap almost daily. Definitely my favourite album. Power Corruption and Lies will always remain Number 1. This song is from that. It’s the finale – not their best known but had a profound effect on me.

2. The Jam – David Watts / The Jam – 'A' Bomb In Wardour Street - Single Version

One of the first 7” singles I ever bought. I took it to the local youth club and I was the only kid there with a record so I DJ’d both sides all night. My DJ style hasn’t changed a whole lot – either side could still get an outing on any given night.

3. Johnny Cash – Tear Stained Letter

Woah! The big JC. I’ve always loved his songs. I’d have loved to have told him. Has there ever been anyone so real as this guy? So open. And so honestly passionate. Yeah, he was a hellraiser too, but if you were Johnny Cash wouldn’t you want to be a little devilish? He seemed a man that fitted in in any decade. Who’d’ve thought he'd be at home covering 9 Inch Nails.

4. The Clash – Washington Bullets

Anyone aware of me already might be thinking 'this is not teaching me much about the man behind this Spotify list' but Washington Bullets and the album Sandinista changed my life. A triple album when most couldn’t even muster up a decent single. An album heavily criticized for being a tad indulgent, I still protest that this is my favourite Clash album. At the time I was supposed to be getting to grips with dull history at school but I wanted to know who Victor Jara and Allende were. I just can’t imagine anyone recording something so political anymore.

5. The Velvet Underground – What Goes On - Live (1972)

My favourite live recording of all time. Made on a 2 track recorder, it just goes to show how brilliant the band were. Minimal recording technique, incredible playing, nothing else needed. Well maybe something else. And that brings its own problems.

6. Throwing Up – Mother Knows Best

Taken from the album Over You which I have released through my label OGenesis. I only release records by people I love but TU mught just change my life. Actually I think they already have – I heard them on John Kennedy’s show and it reminded me of listening to John Peel when he played an absolute gem. For 3 minutes last night, it was 1981 in my head.

7. R. Stevie Moore – I Go Into Your Mind (by R. Stevie Moore and Krys O)

RSM and ex-wife Krys O can no longer bear to have any connection with this track yet it will be in my top 3 songs forever. I was asked by R Stevie to put out a Best Of… album for him. I asked if this could be included and he welled up and told me it couldn’t. Some songs never lose their power.

8. Wu-Tang Clan – Cash Still Rules/Scary Hours (still don't nothing move but the money) 

The Wu blew smoke rings out of their ears n shit. Well maybe not but they made Wu Forever. It was a sprawling quadruple album of near perfect East Coast hardcore rap/hip-hop and this is the best song from it. The ramshackle nature of the band and the fact they seemed to be seconds away from destruction at any moment had so much appeal. It drove what they did.

9. Memphis Slim – Mother Earth 

Beautiful slow and heartfelt perfect for a slow sticky summer evening.  

10. Crass - Mother Earth

Same title as the Memphis Slim song above but this one is about Myra Hindley, the Moors Murderess. I could have picked any song by this band - the first band I ever saw and the first band to blow my infant mind. I was 13 when I first fell in love with these commune living punks. I ended up friends with Penny and with Gee who did their artwork – she even did an album cover for us. Not sure I’ve ever properly told them what a profound effect they had on me.

11. The Fall – Solicitor In Studio

Saw The Fall on Granada Reports. At 6.30pm. After the news. It was like watching the odd guy who lived on your street, but he was in a band. And was the most captivating thing I’d seen in years. It started a love affair with The Fall. Other nominees for this spot were Dr Bucks’ Letter, Smile, Impression of J Temperance, Lay Of The Land, Gut of the Quantifier.

12. The Flying Burrito Brothers – Sin City 

I love Gram Parsons. The king of American cosmic country, but a hugely troubled dude. He was friends with The Stones and pretty much turned country music on its head - even made it fashionable. When Grams' flame burned bright country was hip. Check out Wild Horses by The Stones – we all know that it was Gram who really wrote that one. Keith’ll tell you it's true.

13. Factory Floor – (R E A L L O V E) - Optimo Remix

Factory Floor are the best group around today if your cup of tea involves aural assault, whirling cutting teeth that eat your brains. Y’know, that kind of thing. They really do get to you whether you want them to or not. This song has all that but real atmosphere within, to give you breaks between being eaten. It’s like a friendly attack on your senses.

14. Dionne Warwick – Walk On By

The best, most heartbreaking lyrics ever written to a tune that milkmen whistled. I first heard it by The Stranglers but when I heard the original, it was like the most perfect song I’d ever heard. Such yearning, made public. Such toughness but so tenderly put.

15. Curtis Mayfield – Back To The World 

The title track of an album, the first album I fell in love with when I moved to LA (I am now back living in UK). An oldie but goodie I based the Charlatans’ album Wonderland on this sound. So you could say this song was a huge influence, in some ways it shaped my band when I was living in America. It’s got a real life affirming feel to it. Instant soul. 

16. The Rolling Stones – Gomper

I have to pick a Stones song. I just saw them at Glastonbury and they definitely haven’t lost whatever it was they had. They didn’t play this one but at a push it’s my favourite or, at worst a great one that doesn’t get mentioned everyday.

TELLING STORIES by Tim Burgess is out in paperback and audio now. Follow Tim on Twitter for his latest musings, and listen to the full playlist here.

Earlier this summer we ran a competition around Robert Macfarlane’s THE OLD WAYS for one lucky wayfarer to follow in his footsteps and win a summer trekking around the UK and blogging about their adventures. After a hard-fought battle, Sarah Thomas was crowned as our winner. Now that her journey is at the halfway mark, we thought we’d check in with her to see how she’s finding the experience so far (and to find out more about her adventures, visit ajourneyonfoot.com, where she’s chronicling the whole thing).

Who doesn't love moseying around bookshops? Perusing shelves packed with books, resting your weary limbs in the nearest and squishiest armchair, then leaving laden down with beautiful tomes to pore over when you get home. We're getting misty eyed at the thought of it.

Anyway, if you didn't know, today is July 4th. To many, it's Independence Day. To us, it's INDEPENDENT'S DAY (admire the subtlety of what we've done there folks. To read more about Independent Booksellers Week, head here.) We've taken a moment to praise the independent bookshop, and below are three examples of our favourites.

If you have a suggestion or would like to contribute to the blog, please tweet us or comment below. Tell us about your favourites, we want to hear about bookshops in farflung places, tiny bookshops that few people know about, or simply a bookshop you love to while away the hours in, wherever it may be. 

The Slightly Foxed Bookshop

123 Gloucester Road, London, SW7 4TE

020 7370 3503 | www.foxedbooks.com | @FoxedQuarterly

After walking down Gloucester Road, I can’t imagine a sight more welcome than the dusty blue of the Slightly Foxed awning. If Gloucester Road is a cultural desert (and it is), then the Slightly Foxed Bookshop is an oasis.

Slightly Foxed published the first issue of their quarterly literary magazine in 2003, and in 2009 they took over the Gloucester Road bookshop. It’s an extension of the sensibilities of the magazine – they stock an eclectic selection of new releases, and all manner of second hand books. It feels as though they might operate nightclub style one in, one out policy – there aren’t shelves full of the latest bestsellers, but there’s one each of the new Pulp the Classics editions, and they sit in the window above Caitlin Moran, a James Bond novel, and Mark Mason’s Walk the Lines. Sure, it’s a motley crew, but one that completely makes sense. It reads like the rest of the collection; intelligent, witty, and clearly curated by people who love the books they stock. There’s a shelf full of Slightly Foxed hardbacks – searingly bright wibbalin encases some great writing. And with only 2000 of each title printed, they’re collectable as well as covetable.

And downstairs! Oh, downstairs. If you’re a self-indulgent Penguin employee (and I definitely am) it’s well worth sitting at the bottom of the steps and looking through all the Penguin Paperbacks. Beyond that – as if you could need more – there are shelves and shelves of second hand and antique books – art books, biographies, travel and food writing. It’s all there, and it’s an abundance of quality and quantity.

I spent about half an hour at Slightly Foxed, just browsing. It was only when I left that I realised that the two people who worked there hadn’t interrupted once – I don’t think they cared at all whether we bought anything; they were just pleased to see people paying their books so much attention.

Slightly Foxed pitch their magazine as ‘the real reader’s quarterly’. The Slightly Foxed Bookshop is the real reader’s bookshop.

By Kirsty Taylor, Acting Assistant Editor | @EditorialGirls

Book & Kitchen

31 All Saints Rd, Notting Hill, London W11 1HE

07508 030 742 | http://bookandkitchen.com/ | @BookandKitchen

I only recently discovered Book & Kitchen whilst wandering around the streets just off Portobello Road one weekend. I have just moved into a new flat there and was trying to scope out the charms of the local area – not exactly challenging in Notting Hill, you’ll agree (yep, I’m already a smug West Londoner).

The store has a strange but balanced composite of aesthetics; bright contemporary colours and modishly upholstered armchairs share space with a fully functioning vintage typewriter and record player whose needle wobbles and crackles over an old vinyl.

The spirit and energy is immediately evident, not only from the décor, but the staff as well. Book & Kitchen’s owner and front of house, Muna Khogali, is super friendly and passionate about what she’s doing and could no doubt hand sell every book in the store with her enthusiasm. Plus she’ll also make you a coffee and a slice of cake downstairs! When was the last time that happened when you were browsing in [name redacted for legal reasons]. That’s the ‘kitchen’ bit in the name by the way, just in case, you know, you were thinking they also sold splash backs and graphite worktops.

What I like most is that the books are allowed to showcase themselves. There are no shouty sales promotions or merchandising that makes you immediately aware of the publishers (yes, I fully realise the hypocrisy here). It is assumed that you know what you are looking for, and if not, you are given as much time as you need to discover something new. 31 All Saints Rd, W11. Be about it.

By Joe Yule, Marketing Executive | @Joe_Christmas

Pages of Hackney

70 Lower Clapton Road, Hackney, London E5 0RN

020 8525 1452 | http://pagesofhackney.co.uk/ | @pagesofhackney

A little like Joe (see above), when I first moved to the part of London I now call home, I spent (and still spend) an inordinate amount of time wandering about the place, often lost. It was on one of these adventures that I stumbled across Pages of Hackney. Attractive exterior: check. Local notices in the window: check. Wonderful assortment of books, old and new, plus small dog: check. It is a proper book shop.

If, like me, you're interested in London's history, especially the local stuff, there is so much to sink your teeth into. The history books are right in front of you when you go in, and you can find pretty much everything there. I recently bought a great little book on Blake's London by Iain Sinclair, and a copy of Craig Taylor's brilliant Londoners for a friend. There are lots of more obscure titles too, but I won't bore you with them all, you'll have to go and check the selection out yourself.

Finally, get thee to the basement (a treasure trove of vast proportions) and hats off if you can resist the lure of classic Penguin books and vintage Marvel comics. They run great events in there too. Before I descend into even more hyperbole, here's why Pages gets my vote:

1. It smells right. New and old book smell = nice.

2. It's quiet, calming and no-one bothers you if you just want to get your head down and browse (but people are friendly and suitably informed if you fancy a chat).

3. Did I mention Merlin the dog?

By Natalie Williams, Digital Marketing Executive | @natalie_rw

It would be remiss to talk about independent bookshops without mentioning the Paris institution that is Shakespeare and Company. Here's a post on our On the Strand blog from last year that you may find interesting.

Finally, for our London followers, here's a handy map to the great and good of London's independent bookstores. Enjoy, and happy Independents Day! #independentsday

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Rachel Lichtenstein is an artist, archivist and writer. She is the author of Rodinsky’s Whitechapel and co-author, with Iain Sinclair, of Rodinsky’s Room.

Diamond Street is the second in a trilogy of books by Rachel on London streets. On Brick Lane was the first and both will be followed by a volume on Portobello Road, also to be published by Hamish Hamilton. Find out more about Rachel by visiting her site.

After receiving the fantastic news in 2012 that my application to the Arts Council to produce a digital app to coincide with the paperback edition of my latest book Diamond Street: the hidden world of Hatton Garden had been successful, I have spent the best part of a year working in collaboration with an amazing team of experts in the digital media, film, design, literary and historical fields to produce this new media project. 

The development of a digital app may at first seem like an odd choice for a non fiction writer with absolutely no experience of or skills in this type of medium but from the first time I heard about GPS technology being used in locative apps, I immediately recognised what a great tool this could be for me. I have always worked in a very multi-disciplinary way, having trained as a sculptor before becoming a writer. My creative practise currently involves writing of course, alongside walking, intensive archival research, photography, audio recording, painting, site-specific art installationsand making short films. The multi-media capabilities of a digital app seemed to offer a good way for my readers to experience my work not just as a printed text but also through digital space, new media and in real time.

Before starting this project I spent a long time imagining what a digital app could offer that a printed book could not and how new technologies could be used not to replace but to enhance and support a book.

I wanted the app to offer new insights for my readers into both the stories in the book and the places and people I have written about. I’m really pleased to say that after a lot of hard work I really do believe this has been achieved. Mainly due to the exceptional team I have been collaborating with who have made this magic happen.

Work on the app began with paper plans, budget discussions and meetings with Simon Poulter, Metal Culture’s digital arts officer who was co-producer of the project. We brainstormed on my original idea: ‘to pick up on traces of the history of the place as you wandered around, with images, audio and text being activated by geo-technology.’ We literally ripped the printed book apart and imagined these pages being scattered around the Hatton Garden area, transformed into different digital media, which would then beactivated as users passed by specific locations. The idea was to develop an experimental drift through an area, rather than a guided, chronological linear walk. 

Ripping the book apart – September 2012

From paper designs formulated during this process we developed the rough outline for a design for both the virtual (armchair version) and the GPS on location versions of the app.

The next stage of the development involved intensive meetings with Phantom Production who produced and mixed the extraordinary sound files for the app. Phantom consist of an amazing team of audio producers headed by the multiple-award winning sound artist Francesca Panetta, who runs the Guardian’s audio team. Francesca was one of the first to work on this type of GPS activated app (Soho Stories App). Her knowledge and expertise has greatly enhanced the project and through Francesca I was introduced to Calvium, app developers based in Bristol, worldwide leaders in the field of GPS activated apps.

Before working on the back end of development I spent a considerable amount of time storyboarding the app. I found this a painful process, after five years of researching the area and its history and a book’s worth of material gathered and more, it was hard for me to cut this down. I eventually decided on 12 different story zones, which take you through the story of the historic quarter of Hatton Garden, from its time as a medieval rural monastic landscape in the Fleet Valley, to its transformation in the nineteenth century into a jewellery quarter and the contemporary story of the place today. 

Even though I had already conducted hundreds of hours worth of audio recordings of people who work in the Hatton Garden jewellery trade, it was decided these needed to be re-recorded. The quality of my recordings was just not high enough for the project. So I contacted a number of people who had been involved in the book, from Iain Sinclair, to geologist Diana Clements, to orthodox diamond dealers and sewer flushers and then BBC broadcaster India Rakusen re-recorded my interviewees. These recordings were then mixed with bespoke soundscapes and music to create 12 beautifully produced and extremely high quality sound files, which really form the core of the GPS experience. As you walk around with your smartphone in your pocket and your headphones in your ears the secrets of the streets around you are revealed. Have a listen to some of the sound files we used on the Diamond Street App here. 

After spending a lot of time in different archives, deciding on which images to use in the app and editing down some of the text from the book, we had all the content ready to go. The next stage got a lot more techy! In November 2012 Simon Poulter and I attended an intensive training day with app developers Calvium learning how to use Calvium’s specially developed platform for GPS located apps.

In collaboration with Phantom Production and Calvium we decided on location zones and then placed the sound files and images within these zones. A period of intensive testing ensued, with extensive notes on any issues on site (such as leakage of sound files from one zone to another, or places where sound files overlapped) being taken and then reported back to Calvium who made continual adjustments to the back end of the app. There were many small problems to iron out and a lot of testing was needed before the app was working well. Most of the testing took place throughout the coldest winter on record and I can’t say it was all an enjoyable experience, but hearing those stories come to life in place as I wandered around was undeniably really exciting, a very contemporary way of conducting pyschogeography in place.

I really did jump into the deep end with this project. I had to learn a whole new language fast, as developers and digital artists asked me questions about ‘front ends’ and ‘back ends’, ‘story zones’ and ‘location zones’. To try and explain what I mean, below is a screen shot of the ‘back end’ of the app in development.

Appfurnace build (back end), showing the sound and location zones of diamondstreetapp. The diamond icons represent sound files

Alongside intensive testing on location we began to develop the designs for the armchair version of the app, which eventually became a swiping timeline through the stories in the book, with embedded text, images, films and sound.

I’m delighted to say the Diamond Street App has now been published and is available as a free download both in the iTunes store and for the Android market. I’m really excited about the project, which I hope has achieved its aim of giving readers a much deeper, interactive, dynamic and live experience of the locations, people and stories described within my printed text.

For me, working for the first time with these new mediums has completely altered my outlook on digital publishing and the potential of using new media to connect with new readers and audiences. I’ve found the collaborative multi-media way of working both really exciting and really challenging and whilst I’m looking forward to some quality time alone with my computer, cracking on with my next book, I can certainly imagine working on more digital app projects in the future.

www.diamondstreetapp.com

Every year Penguin Group employees around the world take part in a team walk in aid of a charity of the company's choice. Lorna Broomfeld, who works for Penguin UK, tells us all about this year's event in London, as well as our supported charity the Children's Reading Fund, and the challenges presented by organising so many Penguins at once.

It’s a mere 11 short days until Penguin holds it’s sixth annual, global, charity walk. Golly. The walk first began back in 2008, when a team of walkers in our London office got together to raise an incredible £25,000 for the Woodland Trust (that equates to 18,000 trees, all of which were planted by the charity in locations across the UK) but over the last five years it has become THE event of the year – and not just in London, but right across the globe too - with staff clambering for the chance to puff their Penguin chests out with pride and raise money for a very good cause (while donning extremely fetching bright orange t-shirts). When dawn breaks on Friday 14^th June 2013, Penguins here in London will be joined by colleagues all over the world, from Auckland and Melbourne to New Delhi, Beijing, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, New York, Toronto and Dublin. And the best bit is that we’ll all be united with one aim – to raise awareness of literacy and spread a love of books and reading. How very Penguin.

This is the fifth time that I have personally been involved in pulling the event together and it’s still a task that I embrace with the utmost enthusiasm. The organisation of this year’s Pride of Penguin & DK Walk (to use its official title) has been undertaken by our small, but perfectly formed, committee. We’ve been plugging away since February - it takes time to pull together an event this good, y’know – coming up with everything from the “celebration” theme (it’s about celebrating some of Penguin and DK's best authors, characters, books and the joy of reading); the route (our journey will take us to some of London’s hotspots – think Trafalgar Square, Kensington Gardens, Buckingham Palace and King’s Road, Chelsea – and to areas where some of Penguin and DK's most popular and famous literary figures have lived, worked and visited - from Dickens to Dahl and Peter Pan to Peppa Pig); the t-shirt design (which, this year, features our very own walking Penguin and has been expertly designed by our in-house designer Ben Hughes); to our charity partner (Booktrust’s Children’s Reading Fund – which helps some of the UK's most vulnerable and disadvantaged children develop and grow through the power of stories and reading).

Although our charity affiliations have moved from environmental (The Woodland Trust) to human (for the past three years literacy has become our focus – with previous partners including Room to Read and Bookaid), we always ensure that we support a cause that is close to our hearts. Last year, as well as raising funds to supply books to communities that don’t otherwise have access, we made a decision to encourage a love of reading among members of our own community – the London public - by handing out books en route. Responses ranged from the suspicious ('Nah thanks darling') to the delighted ('how kind of you, I've always wanted to read that'), and as the reactions were overwhelmingly positive – just check out these delighted faces – we’re arranging to do the same this year. Given that we’re partnering with the Children’s Reading Fund we’re hoping to catch the imagination of children of all ages with some fantastic titles, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Peppa Meets the Queen to RHS Wildlife Garden and Eyewitness Dinosaur.

Bee Ridgway grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended Oberlin College (B.A.), then worked for a year as an editorial assistant at Elle magazine. She studied literature at Cornell University (M.A. and Ph.D.) and has worked at Bryn Mawr College since 2001. She lives in Philadelphia, PA. The River of No Return is Bee's debut novel. It publishes today.

The River of No Return - Bee Ridgway

So yep, I’m an American. In fact, thinking about being American is how I make my living.  I’m a professor of American literature, and I spend my days teaching Moby-Dick to young Americans.   But about two years ago I sat down and started writing The River of No Return.  It’s a big, busty time travel novel, a genre mash-up that combines adventure, romance, spy thriller, mystery.  It’s set in Vermont, in contemporary London and in Georgian England.  Its two main characters are British. I surprised myself: shouldn’t a scholar of American history and literature write an American novel?  Instead, a frothy tale of time-traveling Regency aristocrats, beautiful medieval beet farmers and faceless corporate heavies from an ominous future was flowing from my fingers.

I had tossed my academic hat aside, my hair had come tumbling down, and I was tapping into fantasy.  And if there’s anything Americans love to fantasize about, it’s England (not Britain – England). Of course you fantasize about us right back, and always have.  Brits have more to say about Yanks than Yanks do, and Americans are fiercely protective of an idealized England that no British person would recognize.  The number of times an American has yelled at my British partner for not enjoying tea would astonish you.

This used to tick me off.  I’ve spent years in both countries, I have a pretty good grasp of the “real” Britain and the “real” US, and I used to roll my eyes at the notions each nation harbors about the other. 

But that was a humorless mood.  The fact is, fantasy is pleasurable and admitting it keeps us honest and makes us more generous, in art and in life.  The fun house mirror that someone else holds up teaches you to laugh at yourself. I am now a thoroughgoing fan of the fictional versions of our two nations that we dream up between us.  And there are always new ones.  Remember that amazing Dr. Who episode where Britain is zooming through outer space on the back of a white whale?  Remember how I told you that I teach Moby-Dick? Our mutual and often absurd fascination may not have had particularly savory effects on the world stage, but the“special relationship” has made for some terrific popular fiction, going back a long way. 

If I may put my academic chapeau back on for a moment, and regale you with some literary history?  Some of the most archetypically “English” writers bounced their portraits of Albion off America.  Arthur Conan Doyle grew up reading American penny dreadfuls: the first Sherlock Holmes story is largely set in Utah. Agatha Christie’s father was American. P.G. Wodehouse spent vast portions of his adult life in America. Frances Hodgson Burnett immigrated to the U.S. when she was sixteen.  Rudyard Kipling married an American and lived in Vermont for four years – he adored it and was wildly prolific while there, writing The Jungle Book and reams of poetry. I’ve chosen the “popular” writers of yesteryear to make this point, because it’s the “popular” fantasies that we swap back and forth to this day.  The Hollywood and BBC portraits of one another that we love to hate . . . and hate to love.

So yep.  I’m an American, and I’ve written a fantastical novel about Britain. My time-travelly Britain is also – through a side window and around some corners – a portrait of America.  I wrote the novel because it was incredibly fun to do so.  I enjoyed myself thoroughly, wallowing in the alternative versions of reality that I had given myself permission to explore. I offer it to you with a grain of salt (for flavor), and I hope that you enjoy it, too.

The River of No Return is out today. For a gentle introduction to the novel, here's Bee talking about it on Penguin YouTube. 

Author, actress and freelance journalist, Giovanna Fletcher is married to Tom Fletcher from McFly. She grew up in Essex with her Italian dad Mario, mum Kim, big sister Giorgina and little brother Mario, and spent most of her childhood talking to herself (it seems no one wanted to listen) or reading books. Giovanna is a firm believer in the power of magpies and positive energy. To find out more about Giovanna, view her blog or follow her on Twitter.

Her debut novel, Billy and Me, is out this Thursday (23rd May 2013).

Anyway, over to Giovanna as she tells us about a day in her life...

Every day varies, but my writing days are a fairly consistent array of distractions that I struggle to knock on the head before getting on with the pressing task of writing.

I get up at a respectable eight o'clock (I'm conveniently forgetting the times I struggle to get out of bed before ten - they’re rare!), and potter around having breakfast with the hubby, showering, getting into a fresh pair of PJs or comfies, and then pottering around for an hour or so. I then like to watch the beginning of This Morning for their quick round up of the news. Now, this can sometimes work against me as occasionally there'll be someone being interviewed that I think will be interesting to watch. But, let's say this is a day I prise myself away from the telly . . .

I then go to the office and sit at my desk in front of my laptop. First task? Checking my Twitter, Facebook and the Mail Online (I like the pictures), and then, before I know it, it's one o'clock and its time for lunch. Not that I've earned the break, of course!

After lunch (usually soup in case you're wondering), I start reading what I'd worked on the previous day to get my mind focused . . . Occasionally I feel tired and have a nap at this point (let's blame the Italian in me - I love a siesta), although I've tried to stop myself from doing that - grabbing a quick cuppa is much more time effective. I'm then ready to write for the rest of the day and late into the evening, usually getting a solid six hours distraction-free-writing in the bag. 

Yes, reading back over this, my working day is pretty disgusting really. I promise to rid myself of a few distractions and leap over obstacles with speed so that I can get to work a little quicker in the future . . . This is said from my PJs while I nurse yet another cuppa. I guess with writing it's all about finding a way that works for you and gets the creative juices flowing.

Joanna Rossiter is the author of The Sea Change (her first novel). She grew up in Dorset and studied English at Cambridge University before working as a researcher in the House of Commons and as a copy writer. In 2011 she completed an MA in Writing at Warwick University. She lives and writes in London. Last week The Sea Change was announced as one of the Richard and Judy Summer 2013 Book Club titles. Here Joanna expands on some common misconceptions about the wonderful world of writers.

The Sea Change by Joanna Rossiter

1.    Being an author is glamorous.

Before I had managed to write a book, I had an image of what an author should be in my mind that was something akin to Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge; sitting down melancholically in the middle of the night at his type writer with the Eiffel Tower outside his window and, after a sip of absinth, typing the words ‘This is a story about love’.

In reality, novels are rarely the results of flashes of inspiration, although they may often begin this way. I like to think of them as a long-standing marriage; the writer weds themselves to one particular idea and then sticks with it through thick and thin, through romance and conflict – times when they wish they could separate and times when they feel like they want to do nothing else but spend time together. Sometimes writing is a lonely business – to finish a book, authors must spend days and evenings in a room on their own filling their head with made-up people. Often, there’s little chance for genuine feedback until the book is complete and nobody except the writer can see the full picture until the book is written.  There is a lot of hard graft and very little glamour, but it’s worth it for the satisfaction of a well-told story.

2.    Authors are full of new ideas.

It has been said that all the plots in the world can be summarized in one of two phrases: ‘A stranger comes to town’ or ‘a hero leaves home’.  Whilst I wouldn’t go this far, I would argue that modern day culture places a lot of emphasis on originality when, more often than not, stories are found rather than invented. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays from stories he had come across elsewhere; renaissance writers recognised that the talent of a writer lies not as much in the chosen story but in the way that story is told.

3.    Authors don’t read reviews of their own novels.

Given than my first novel only came out last Thursday, I have had very limited experience of this! However, already I’m finding that the desire for feedback from readers has overtaken my fear of reading a bad review. Authors spend long spells alone with their books in order to get them written and it’s a joy when we finally get to meet people who have read our books and hear what they have to say about them. Every writer writes for a reader, whether they admit it or not.

Note from the Editor: You can read Richard and Judy's reviews of The Sea Change here. 

Novels are born out of an enduring desire to persevere with an idea until it is fully realized on the page.  I spend far more time editing than I do writing; for me, it’s the most satisfying part of creating a book. Once the bones of the story are on paper, it’s a great feeling to be able to start drawing out a structure and looking for the hidden meanings in each scene. I often don’t know exactly what a story is trying to say until I have written a first draft; the imagery and echoes and symbols that I want to build on only become clear when I start to edit.

5.    Authors never plan their books.

Even though a lot of a story’s nuances can’t be determined until it is written, authors still put large amounts of time and energy into planning their novels before they put pen to paper. The level of detail varies from author to author but I would say that it’s almost impossible to write an engaging novel without a plan to follow. Without a preconceived plot structure, it is difficult to convince the reader early on in the novel that you, the author, know where the story is going and have control over its outcome. It’s like being on a rollercoaster; for the reader it’s great fun not knowing where the twists and turns lie but the ride can only be enjoyed if the reader is confident that the author has built a trustworthy track for the story to follow.

6.    A book can be written in a month.

Initiatives like NaNoWriMo are a wonderful tool for helping people get started on books and cultivating the commitment required to finish them. However, they are also misleading in the perception they create about novels. Contrary to what they suggest, I think it’s impossible to write anything readable in a month (others may prove me wrong!). Novels, like wine, need time to mature. They need to be laid to rest and then picked back up again at a later date in order to be read and edited with a fresh, objective mind.

7.    Having a story to tell is the only ingredient required to write a book.

The most common response I get when I tell people that I’m an author is not ‘what do you write about?’; it’s actually something along the lines of ‘I’ve got a great idea for a novel myself; I’d turn it into a book if I had the time.’  One of the wonderful things about writing is how accessible it is: unlike paint or a musical instrument, language is a tool that the majority of us use on a daily basis. As a result, there is an unspoken assumption that any one of us could write a book if we had the time.  I do believe that anyone can learn to craft a good story, just like anyone can learn a musical instrument. However, there is a craft involved and this craft takes more than time; it takes practice. You wouldn’t expect someone who had never played the trumpet before to pick one up and come out with perfect jazz. Similarly, stories require skill and perseverance and they are as much a practiced art as music or sculpture. 

There can be a lot of snobbery on the side of published authors towards unpublished authors. And yet, the fact that a certain author is published is not just down to the quality of their writing; as a published author myself, I would be the first to admit that at some point along the line, there is an element of chance involved. Editors are inundated with manuscripts on a weekly basis. My own editor is sent ten manuscripts from new authors via literary agents every week and, out of those manuscripts, she publishes only three or four a year. There are far more publishable manuscripts out there than there is scope for publishing them.  A whole host of factors outside of a writer’s hands go into the decision to publish a book: from the extent to which a story resonates with the culture of the time to its appeal to a particular audience to whether or not it complements the other books on that publisher’s list. As much as editors want to nurture new talent, publishing is a profit making venture and one eye always has to be kept on the ability of a book to generate sales.  Yes, there are plenty of manuscripts that are turned down because they are poorly written but there are also thousands that are rejected for reasons outside of an author’s control. A large part of me does want to believe that a good book will always find a way through eventually…

We all dream of making a living from the thing we love to do the most and authors are no different. Whilst we can convince ourselves that it isn’t about the sales, which writer would turn down the chance to have a bestseller? With the move into the digital space squeezing the amount of money a writer makes from each book, it’s not a career that is entered into for financial security. In most cases, it’s a hand-to-mouth profession that goes alongside a series of other day jobs.  However, writers, like everybody else, will (albeit sometimes secretly) welcome the affirmation that good sales figures bring. Popularity is not always seen as a good thing in the literary world: literature that is valuable and literature that is popular are often viewed as being in contention with each other.  Yet, deep down, I don’t think any author would turn their nose up at the prospect of more readers, a higher profile for their writing and, yes, a royalty statement that doesn’t make you want to weep into your green tea.

All authors ‘borrow’ aspects or experiences from their own lives when they write. In order to create compelling characters, writers often need to be able to relate to the characters themselves and this can mean incorporating into them certain traits that we have seen in our own lives or in others. Whilst stories have their root in the author’s personal experience, they often grow into something else entirely. I’m a great believer in readers forming the meaning of a story for themselves; it’s more about the experiences that they bring to the page than it is about the author’s. In fact, I as a writer can often only spot the resonances of a particular novel to my own life once I have written it and become a reader myself. A good author can present their reader with a carefully chosen set of ingredients that complement each other; but, more often than not, it’s the reader who decides what to concoct.

The Sea Change is out now.

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Today (April 23rd) is World Book Night, a time for readers and publishers accross the world to come together to celebrate our favourite things: books.

As well as live events in London, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Liverpool, World Book Night, along with publishers across the country, will give 20,000 volunteers half a million books to give away to members of their community who do not or are unable to regularly read.

At Penguin we're proud to have contributed two books to this year's list of 20 World Book Night titles. The first book is an enduring classic, one of the most famous adventure stories of all time...

Penguin Press editor Simon Winder says of Treasure Island:

"Within moments of starting to read it you realize that Stevenson has set out very self-consciously to write as enjoyable and gripping a book as possible, and - because Stevenson was a genius - he pulls it off.  He distills the essence of every pirate tale, takes the brilliant decision to see it all through the eyes of a boy, and simply lets rip. 

Parrots, doubloons, curses, shanties, castaways, a map and of course treasure pour from the story.  The villains could not be more villainous (surely Blind Pew must be in any rationally managed Top Ten), the forces of good more colourless.  I envy anyone who has not read Treasure Island as they have something wonderful to look forward to.  But, having read it myself off and on for some forty years, I can't say that it ever gets less good."

Also as part of World Book Night, we're distributing 20,000 copies of JoJo Moyes's heart-breaking Me Before You.

Julia Bookford, World Book Night CEO, had this to say about this best-seller:

"We all read for different reasons, and those reasons will change by the day, the time, our mood and our perception of a book and what we expect to get from it. It could be that I enjoyed Me Before You so much because I wasn't expecting to (based purely on my judgement of it's cover), but I completely fell in love with it. I was intrigued, I was gripped, I was entranced, I was educated and in the end I emerged a little bit changed by having read it.

It is, of course, a love story (but aren't all our lives to some extent?) but it's about as far as 'girl meets boy, they go through some complications but eventually live happily ever after' as it can get. It's about playing the hand we were dealt, however unfair it may be and what happens if we decide we simply don't want to play any more and about how our lives can be utterly changed by meeting the wrong person at the wrong time. There's a good chance, if you're that way inclined, that you might cry your eyes out at the end (I did, but please don't let that put you off if you're not quite so sentimental!), but whatever your emotional state I challenge you not to be a tiny bit effected by the story."

We'll be hosting hourly book bundle giveaways on our Twitter feed all evening tonight - be sure to follow us and look out for the links from 4pm to win a selection of fantastic books. From classics to cookbooks, and erotic fiction to hot literary prospects, we've tried to cater to something for everybody, and demonstrate the breadth of delights that await you in your local library or bookstore.

So why not close your laptop, switch off your monitor, put your phone on silent, and settle down with a good book this evening?

A very happy World Book Night from all at Penguin!

 

I’d always wanted to write a novel, but didn’t think I had the ability. When, at 50, I made a mid-life career change, I decided to enrol in a screenwriting program rather than creative (prose) writing. I had previously written a screenplay for a feature-length film made purely for fun, so I thought I could do that. So The Rosie Project was my school project over five years. Two factors drove me to adapt it into a novel: the first was that with a story in place, I thought the jump to writing a novel was not so great so I could achieve that ambition; the second was to get more attention for the script to help fund the making of the film.

How difficult was it to adapt it as a novel?

I found the “reverse adaptation” very straightforward. In fact, I realised that the story was perhaps better told as a novel. I was able to work quite quickly – the first draft took only four weeks. I already had a clear plot, characters and dialogue. The big addition was Don’s inner world – his thoughts. Although these were not on the page in the screenplay, they were very clear in my mind, so quite easy to add. They are, in the novel, an important source of comedy. In a film, you can generate comedy from physical movement and expressions and from timing – these tools are not really available to the novelist. So in the novel, the main source of comedy moves from the external world to what’s happening in Don’s head.

Did you do a lot of research on Asperger’s Syndrome or Autism?

I did read a couple of technical books and a couple of memoirs but their influence on the character of Don Tillman was minimal. My first degree was in physics – lots of science and maths! Then I worked for many years in information technology and also taught and did research at several universities. So I met many people who were technically very capable and often had “left field” ideas, but who struggled with understanding and communicating with other people. I guess today, many of these (mainly male) guys would be diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, but that diagnosis really only became popular in the 1990s.

Is Don Tillman based on anyone in particular?

They say a character is a third someone you know, a third yourself and a third made up. A particular friend, an information technology guru, had a dramatic true-life story around his quite-focused “Wife Project” and this was the original inspiration for the script. Initially I channelled his voice, but Don soon took on its own character. I was also a bit of a nerd in my youth, and a bit beyond. And I added in mannerisms and stories from others – “greetings” and “I’m in human sponge mode” come from colleagues.

How do you feel about using autism / Asperger’s as a source of humour?

Don is a person with big strengths (high intelligence) and weaknesses (poor social skills). I see him as atypical rather than disabled. Most stories, drama or comedy, require the hero to overcome a weakness to achieve their goal. Comedy arises when the hero is seriously under-equipped for the journey. And sometimes Don’s view of the world makes more sense than ours. So far, the novel has been very well received by people with Asperger’s, their families and organisations. Many have commented that they appreciate the socially-challenged person being the hero and the person we identify with rather than someone for the real hero to learn from (as in, for example, Rain Man). No doubt there will be other views but if the book prompts discussion, all the better.

Does Don actually have Asperger’s? You never say he does in the book.

That was a very deliberate decision. As soon as you say “Asperger’s” or “Autism”, people, in my experience, focus on the syndrome rather than the character. Don is not a bunch of symptoms – he’s a quirky guy who probably would be diagnosed as being on the Autism spectrum – but I don’t claim to be an expert. The citation for the Victorian Premier’s Award said Don had “undiagnosed Asperger’s” and I say “undiagnosed except by the judges of a literary award.”  If, reading The Rosie Project, you note that Don drinks alcohol, and you think (as one psychiatrist friend did) that “aspies don’t drink”, then, in your diagnosis, he doesn’t have Asperger’s. Fair enough. Read on.

Where did the Rosie character come from?

The original story was titled The Klara Project, and Klara was a nerdy Hungarian studying for her PhD in physics. There was a plot around plagiarism and Don helping her out. About 2 ½ years into the project, I decided that Klara wasn’t a strong-enough character – she didn’t require such a big change and effort from Don. And he didn’t learn as much as I wanted him to. So I replaced her with the antithesis of what Don was looking for – to see how far he could go. I didn’t consciously base her on anyone but there are elements of a couple of people I know in there.

Have you ever met anyone like Gene? I mean, really? At a university?

Yes.

What happened to the screenplay?

We have had firm offers from production companies in UK, Australia and the US. I’m very confident we will do a deal and have every hope that the film will be made.

Who would you like to play Don?

I don’t answer this question, because it puts an idea, and not always a good one, of what Don is like in the heads of people who read the book. One of the joys of reading is to use your imagination. But I want the film to be laugh-out-loud funny – genuine comedy. So the most important factor is the comedic chemistry amongst Don, Rosie and the director.

Will there be a sequel?

I am working on one now.

Your wife writes erotic fiction. How does that work?

She writes under the name Simone Sinna – and is currently working on a mainstream novel. We work well together – we discuss story ideas, review each other’s work, and know that if the other person is on a roll, it’s our turn to make dinner. Or order in.

How does it feel having rights for The Rosie Project sold in 35 countries?

It’s great that people in such a range of cultures – from China to Iceland - can relate to the story and particularly to Don. On the financial side, I’ve been able to give up my day job to focus on writing.

What was your day job? What exactly is data modelling?

I was an information technology specialist focusing on data modelling, which is basically specifying how data will be organised and represented in a database. I wrote a couple of books on the subject – one is entering its fourth edition. In the 80s I founded a consultancy that I sold in 1999 – and after that I focused on teaching data modeling and consulting skills around the world. I met quite a few people like Don.

What advice would you give to writers?

I’ve written a few things about this on my blog, but basically I work with a plan, which I update as I go. If you’re writing well without a plan, I’m not going to suggest you change, but if writing without a plan isn’t working for you…  
And good writing is re-writing. You can always make it better. Enrol in a writing class or join a writers group or both – for feedback, knowledge sharing and encouragement. Write for publication.

How do you think The Rosie Project compares with The Big Bang Theory / The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time / One Day?

I haven’t seen / read any of them. Deliberately. Once I realised I was working in the same territory, I avoided reading them so as not to be hamstrung by worrying about copying. Sometimes different writers just end up at the same place, coincidentally or because some things are just common to certain types of people. Of course now people thrust Asperger’s-themed books at me to review...

What do you read?

Not much fiction when I’m writing. In the past I read a lot – typically taking an author and reading all of his / her works until I got exhausted – when I was in teens / early 20s Hemingway, Camus, Solzhenitsyn, Kurt Vonnegut…  later Philip Roth, John Irving, Joanne Harris, Rose Tremain, John Fowles.

As an adolescent, I read science fiction – lots and lots of it. The most recent books I’ve read were Addition by Toni Jordan (a book Rosie has been compared with) and Waiting for the Barbarians by J M Coetzee.

What books influenced The Rosie Project?

Many years ago (I’d have been in my teens) I read a 1950s book that was a huge hit in Australia – They’re a Weird Mob by Nino Culotta (John O’Grady).  It was the model of a humorous book, first person, about a fish out of water, an Italian in Australia. I never consciously drew from it, but in retrospect it probably provided the first model for Rosie. I like John Irving’s ability to create character and plot that seem just a bit heightened – but never actually incredible.

Don is a bit of a foodie – and a wine buff. Where did that come from?

Me.  I like to cook, eat and drink. I do a lot of travelling – in the past with seminars, now with the book – and an interest in food and wine fits well with travel.  And I was keen to give Don some characteristics that were not traditionally associated with Asperger’s.

Jennifer McVeigh's debut novel The Fever Tree, the epic tale of a British woman embarking on a new life in nineteenth-century southern Africa, has been critically acclaimed and selected for Richard and Judy's Book Club in March. Here, she reveals her 10 Tips on How to Stay Sane as a Debut Novelist.

1. Don’t quit your job before you have a book deal. Very sensible advice that I spectacularly failed to follow. I left my job as a literary agent and stepped into the terrifying world of no salary, no professional support and no real hope of achieving what I was setting out to achieve. It was a very rocky ride.
2. Do join a writing group – they will keep you sane, help you to stay on track, and remind you that there are other people in the world crazy enough to be battling all day with words on paper.
3. Don’t divulge your plot, or writing problems for that matter, to friends at dinner – they’ll say very unhelpful things like: Isn’t that a bit predictable? How can you not know what’s going to happen at the end? And – most gruelling of all - hasn’t Wilbur Smith written a novel just like that?
4. When you’re writing sex scenes, don’t imagine your parents looking over your shoulder – a passionate kiss will quickly disintegrate into a prudish peck on the cheek.
5. Don’t obsess over the perfection of other novels. Read them, learn from them, but don’t let them cast your own into shadow. I always wanted my protagonist to be as dynamic and real as Cathy or Emma, but it wasn’t until I had reached the end of her story that I felt I really knew her.
6. Don’t let yourself imagine all the unpublished authors in the world being turned down by agents, like the millions of lost souls waiting at the gates of heaven. If you have written something good, then someone will spot it – you just need to have faith and determination.
7. Don’t be your own judge. After I had written my novel I shelved it in despair, convinced that it was worthless. It was only by some stroke of luck – a chance meeting with a literary agent – that I was convinced to send it out into the world. Thank goodness I did.
8. Don’t demonise the agents who reject you. More than likely your manuscript fell into the hands of some poor, unpaid 17 year old intern with a hangover, desperately trying to reduce the size of the slush pile. Wait a few months, and send it in again. I was offered representation by an agent who must have afterwards let my manuscript fall into the slush pile. A month later I received an earnest typed letter from the agency: “Dear Miss McVeigh, many thanks for sending in your manuscript. I’m very sorry to inform you that…”
9. Once you are published - in the interests of sanity – try not to check your Amazon sales rank more than twice (OK – that’s not realistic – perhaps 5 times) a day. If sales are good your publisher will tell you, and a shift from 3050 to 2095 is almost certainly meaningless.
10. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because you’ve got one novel behind you, the second will be easier. It won’t. Sweating over a novel is part of what makes it brilliant. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. I do have a very frustrating writer friend who keeps telling me that her second novel is a breeze…

The Fever Tree is available now in paperback (RRP £7.99). Follow author Jennifer McVeigh on Twitter and Facebook.

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Jennifer McVeigh discusses her inspiration for 'The Fever Tree'

To celebrate the Oscar successes of Argo, Lincoln, and Les Miserables, we're offering 50% off the books at Penguin.co.uk for today (February 25) only. To claim your discount, simply enter the coupon code 'readthefilm' at checkout.

Doris Kearns Goodwin has loved history all her life. She has focused her career on the lives and stories of presidents past: Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and presently Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

For four decades, she has lived with dead presidents. She wakes up with them in the morning, and thinks about them when she goes to bed at night. She has imagined them in their youth, in the White House, with their families and friends. She has spent significant time thinking about how their voices sound, the cadence of their speech, their posture and stride. She has sought to understand the inner person behind the public figure. For her, this study brings the presidents to life and allows us to learn from their past successes and struggles. Through her writing, she hopes readers will feel like they, too, know these presidents in a new and intimate way.

Goodwin’s bestselling book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln was the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln film. She visited the set in Richmond, Virginia, and saw up close and personal Lincoln’s world coming to life.

Q: Let’s start with your book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, which was the basis for the movie Lincoln. How did you expect the movie to tackle the 900-plus pages?

A: I knew that they couldn’t deal with the whole book. The only way to make the story come alive in a feature film was to make a story within a story. So Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner decided to focus on Lincoln’s tumultuous final four months in office, the ending of slavery with the passage of the 13^th amendment, and the Union victory in the Civil War. The only way to tell the whole story is through a miniseries. Maybe that will be next!

Q: This is the first of your books to be made into a feature film. How does that feel?

A: Seeing all the actors in their costumes, the cinematographer, the lighting people, the technicians and dozens of people working on the set, and knowing that somehow this book helped to inspire Spielberg’s team to create an entire world is very exciting.

Q: And what thoughts did you have upon arriving in Richmond and visiting the sets as Lincoln’s world was coming to life in this old pinball factory?

A: What Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner have been able to do so masterfully is tell a big, historical story in such an intimate way. It’s an up-close and very personal, detailed look at the life Lincoln led and the people closest to him during this most important time. For the 10 years I spent writing Team of Rivals, everyday I imagined the world Lincoln inhabited.The loving fidelity the filmmakers paid to recreate his life, his world, is astonishing. I felt magically transported back in time to the 1860s.

Q: One of the most important locations in the film is Lincoln’s office, which was essentially the center of the Lincoln White House. Was it comforting or unsettling to be in that room that you must have imagined time and time again.

A:  As I walked in the Lincoln office, I had a sense that I was really there. I could see him there, sitting in his chair, picking up his pen. It was so much like what I had imagined while I was writing my book, that I could almost smell the cigar smoke lingering in the draperies! It was an extraordinary experience to see the attention to details: from the genuine Belter piece to theold maps on the wall and the portrait of President Andrew Jackson.

Q: Lincoln’s desk is a beautiful and important piece of furniture. Set designer Jim Erickson said he added all those cubbyholes for authenticity. Please tell us about the particular meaning the desk holds.

A: I suppose it’s because Lincoln’s office is at the heart of the movie.He would sometimes write little fragments of his speeches and tuck them away in the drawers and cubbyholes. People thought he wrote his speeches at the last minute, but he had thought about themes and sentences for weeks. The desk drawer is also where he would put his hot letters, the letters he would write in a moment of anger or frustration. He would not send the letters, but would wait for his emotions to settle. Especially near to me are the first-edition books atop the desk; books that he would have read at the time – The Poetical Works of John Milton and The Bigelow Papers.

Q: The attention to detail, as you mentioned, is extraordinary. How do those details impact or enhance the storytelling?

A: The research that went into replicating the furniture, the gas lighting, carpeting, and wallpapers is exceptional. I loved hearing about how they found a place in England to hand-weave the carpet and in Richmond to make the wallpaper using silk screening. But yet, even with the beautiful sets and furniture, costumes and linens, clocks, candelabras, china and crystal, and books, bringing Lincoln to life is the most important thing in the whole movie. Obviously, the story matters and the 13th Amendment, but people adore this man Lincoln and he fascinates them. And if you can better create him through his surroundings and the people who mattered, then all of that makes a profound difference.

Q: So tell us, what did you ultimately think of Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance as Lincoln?

A: Daniel Day-Lewis has brought this iconic figure to life in a way that I could not envision before seeing his performance on the big screen. I was told that when he arrived to start filming, he completely embodied Lincoln – and didn’t break character. His performance was remarkable in every way - from the way he looked to his posture and gait. His storytelling ability, and way his face lit up with those sparkling eyes, to that voice that could carry throughout the land were spellbinding.

Q: When you see the movie, there is something so particular about his posture and the way in which he walks. How would you describe it?

A: Lincoln at 6-feet-4-inches tall had this singular way of walking, which gave the impression that his long, gaunt frame needed oiling. He seemed toplod forward in a slightly awkward manner, his hands hanging at his sides or folded behind his back. His step had no spring; he lifted his whole foot at once rather than lifting from the toes and then he would thrust his foot down on the ground rather than landing on his heel.

Q: Tell us about Lincoln’s voice. There had been some online chatter that people were critical of the high pitch.

A:Lincoln’s voice was thin and high pitched, but I think you’ll see in this movie that his voice also had tremendous range. In his day, Lincoln’s voice had much carrying power, allowing it to be heard from the far reaches of the crowd. He would also become increasingly impassioned as he spoke, gesturing with his head and body rather than with his hands. His speaking went to the heart because it came from the heart. Lincoln’s eloquence was of the higher type, which produced conviction in others because of the conviction he possessed.

Q: When he speaks, it seems to me his face changes dramatically. Do you agree?

A: Yes, when Lincoln would begin to speak, his expression of sorrow dropped immediately. His face lit up with a winning smile – a genuine, deep and knowing smile. It was through his words and his facial expressions that one could know his keen intelligence and genuine kindness of heart.

Q: Tell me what surprised you most in your own research of Lincoln and how is that demonstrated in the movie?

A: The vitality of the man, the magnetism of his personality, and the life-affirming sense of humor were much greater than I had realized. His sense of humor was one of the ways in which he combatted his own melancholy. Those who knew Lincoln described him as a very funny man. Lincoln himself recognized that humor was an essential aspect of his temperament. He laughed, he explained, so he did not weep. He saw laughter as the joyous, universal evergreen of life. His stories were intended to whistle off sadness.

Q: You have mentioned that Lincoln’s storytelling was key to his personal and professional success. Can you tell us how it helped him and brought him closer to the people of histime?

A: He had hundreds of stories that he could all on at any time. The stories often had a point relevant to the moment, but sometimes were just hilarious. His humor would today rival that of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. I think he could have matched them one for one. There’s a moment when somebody says to him, "Lincoln, you're two-faced." And he looks right back, he said, "If I had two faces, do you think I'd be wearing this face?" So many people say that he couldn't possibly be elected in today’s time. But I disagree. With his strength of conviction, with his humor, with his intelligence, with his lovability, our country would really be in trouble if we couldn't elect him today.

Q: At the core of your book and presumably this movie, is Abraham Lincoln’s political genius.

A: Both movie and the book focuson the political genius of this man at a time when we're so distrustful of politicians. The movie demonstrates that it takescompromise, attention to detail, willingness to bargain and masterful timing to get something done, but the system can work. And that's an important lesson for today.

Q: What is it about Lincoln that continues to interest and excite people generations later?

A: People feel a deep emotional attachment to Lincoln than perhaps any other president. In part, it is his life story, the trail of losses and failures before he reached the presidency.  And of course, the soaring words that have been studied and memorized by generations of students.

Q. What do you hope readers will take away from your book and the movie?

A. I would like people to realize that in the hands of a truly great politician the qualities we normally associate with decency and morality—honesty, sensitivity, compassion and empathy—can also be great political resources.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is available now, RRP £12.99.

Jennifer McVeigh's debut novel The Fever Tree, the epic tale of a British woman embarking on a new life in nineteenth-century southern Africa, has been critically acclaimed and selected for Richard and Judy's Book Club in March. Here, she discussses he inspiration for the book and reveals her top five favourite stories set in Africa.

People always ask me – so what inspired you to write The Fever Tree? And of course there are lots of answers: the Victorian diary on which the story is loosely based, the landscape of southern Africa, my fascination with a character – a girl who cannot recognize love until it is too late. But there is a different answer; one I have talked about less.

I grew up as a tomboy, happier making blood brothers in the woods than painting my nails scarlet. I longed for adventure – real adventure, and spent my weekends camped in an old army tent in the garden, where the dawn light filtered through holes in the canvas (were they bullet holes or cigarette burns?). When I was twelve my dreams came true - my father took me to East Africa on safari.

We rode horses for ten days across the Masai Mara, camping at night under a sky glittering with stars, listening to the low grunts of a lion carry far across the grasslands. We galloped with herds of zebra, clouds blackening into storm. The plains lit up underneath to an iridescent gold, and I remember thinking as the horse pounded beneath me that there could never be anywhere in the world as beautiful as this. We chased ostrich, and – on a hot day – stripped the saddles off our sweat soaked horses and pushed them deep into a lake until their feet left the ground and they were straining and blowing, and it felt as though we were flying. I fell madly in love with the simplicity of the life and the exhilarating dangers of the bush.

One afternoon towards the end of the trip I felt acutely light headed. An hour later I was in the grip of a high fever. I remember the local hospital – a small, flat concrete block with the toilets ankle high in urine and water, and a man with a muddy looking bowl of instruments submerged in water who pricked my finger with one of them and took a blood sample. Malaria they said. There were no planes available to fly me to Nairobi hospital and by the time my father managed to charter one I was hanging on by a thread.

I recovered in Nairobi but the trip left me changed. The exhilaration, the adventure, the vast, remoteness of the landscape, and – at the end – the terrible sickness, had a profound effect on me, and these experiences lie at the heart of The Fever Tree.

Jennifer McVeigh's Top 5 Africa Stories

“In the biggest, brownest, muddiest river in Africa…” The Enormous Crocodile waded into my four year old life with a terrifying snap of his jaws and a reckless disdain for morality as I knew it. He wasn’t just eating children because he was hungry. He was eating them because it was fun. And I was thrilled. So began a lifelong love of the wild spaces and wild creatures of Africa.

It was Jock of the Bushveld – the most famous dog in South Africa – who brought this wilderness to life. Has there ever been a more loveable, loyal companion? My childhood hero – Jock, the runt of the litter, who was almost drowned at birth in a bucket of water – grows up to be the bravest dog on the veld. His adventures opened up to me the landscape of Africa – the lives of transport riders travelling across the great plains, the hidden dangers of the bush, the nights huddled around the camp fire, the roar of the lion, the open skies, the early mornings and the bush teeming with game.

Later, came Out of Africa, the story of my teenage dreams. ‘I had a farm in Africa.’ I couldn’t speak the words out loud, I so desperately wanted them to be true. My father had taken me on safari in Kenya. We had ridden horses across the rift valley, galloping alongside zebra and ostrich, and camped out under the stars at night. I was in love. Karen Blixen – God how I envied her. I wanted to buy a farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills; to lie in bed at night listening to the rain drumming on the earth outside; to ride out with a herd of cattle many hundreds of miles across the bush to meet my husband, fighting a war with Germany. And most of all I wanted a white hunter who would take me on ‘safari’, just the two of us, for months at a time.

It wasn’t until I went to Oxford that I engaged with Africa as a real place, and began to learn a little of her history. Heart of Darkness opened my eyes. Here were Europeans in spotless white suits, and Africans in chain gangs. The dream was tainted. Africa was not a place about which one could spin fantasies. There was something terrible and degenerate at the heart of the European experience which Blixen and Hemmingway had omitted. And I felt ashamed and a little foolish for ever having wanted a farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills.

At last, when I had spent some time in various African countries, humbled but still enamoured, I began reading A Grain of Wheat. Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s story of Kenya’s fight for independence was, and remains, one the most arresting and beautifully crafted novels I have read. It showed me a different side of Africa. I learnt a little of what life was like for black Kenyans living under British rule, and – for the first time – I was reading an African novel which wasn’t from an imperial, European perspective. The difference was radical.

The Fever Tree is available now in paperback (RRP £7.99). Follow author Jennifer McVeigh on Twitter and Facebook. 

To celebrate Valentine's Day, this week we held a poll to find the nation's favourite Penguin love story, asking our Facebook fans and Twitter followers to vote for their favourite from a shortlist of ten of our most enduring romantic classics.

After much discussion and in-fighting among the Austen aficionados, Bronte-botherers and Hardy die-hards, the results are in:

1) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: 24% - 70 votes

2) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: 18% - 51 votes

3=) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: 15% - 44 votes

3=) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: 15% - 44 votes

4) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: 8% - 24 votes

5) Persuasion by Jane Austen: 8% - 23 votes

7) Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: 5% - 13 votes

8=) Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan: 3% - 8 votes

8=) Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin: 3% - 8 votes

10) Le Grand Mealnes (The Lost Estate) by Henri Alain-Fournier: 1% - 2 votes

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Austen's romantic comedy-of-manners will top pretty much any book list it is eligible for; and so it proved here, winning the vote in the end at a canter with a 24% share. The perennial favourite was perhaps still fresh in the public's imaginations after the recent 200th anniversary celebrations. 

There was little to separate the Bronte sisters however, with just six votes to separate Charlotte's Jane Eyre (18%) and Emily's Wuthering Heights (15%). F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was by far the most popular non-English title on the list, also garnering 15% of the vote.

To celebrate the results of the poll we're offering a Valentine's Day 50% discount on Pride and Prejudice at Penguin.co.uk - to claim your discount, simply enter the coupon code 'Love' when prompted.

Happy Valentine's Day!

On Sunday 27th January 2013, we launched the first Penguin Chat (#PenguinChats) with Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia, authors of the fabulous Beautiful Creatures series. #PenguinChats was launched to offer the chance to get an author's undivided attention on Twitter - to ask them any burning questions you just needed to get off your chest.

The Beautiful Creatures Penguin Chat lasted 30 minutes, and so many of you participated that Margaret and Kami couldn't even answer all the questions in time! We really wanted to share some of the questions and answers for you, so we created a Storify to capture just some of the conversation.

Watch this space for more #PenguinChats coming soon - we'll annouce the latest over on the #PenguinChats blog page, so do keep checking back.

In the meantime, did you take part in the Beautiful Creatures Penguin Chat? We'd love to hear what you thought. And, if you have any suggestions for who you'd like to have a Penguin Chat with, let us know in the comments below.  

It’s an odd and wonderful thing as a bibliophile to be able to work with authors and books. Getting ‘behind-the-scenes’ and helping books find their audience, as a marketer, is often about finding ways to extend your own enthusiasm and passion for a book and get the message across.

So when you get to work on a book that you like with a great author, it’s good fun – and a real privilege.

But when you work on THE book that served to remind you exactly why you work in publishing, that makes all the long hours, blood, sweat and tears utterly worth it and has the power to inspire a whole new generation of readers – there are, ironically, no words.

John Green is already an icon in American YA literature, known equally for his mastery of social media, particularly via the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel. With almost 1,000,000 subscribers and 300,000,000 video views, John and his brother Hank are living legends in the video community. This is where I found him, and then I discovered his books.

Teen and YA fiction has come a long way since I was technically the right age to read it. There wasn’t much beyond Judy Blume, Point Horror and Sweet Valley High back then, and although they were great, they’re nothing to the choice on offer now. With limited high street shelf-space and the advent of self-publishing, the genre has opened up even further, so making a mark and really resonating with readers is harder than ever.

Enter The Fault in Our Stars. You can often look back at someone’s career and clearly recognise their big break – their defining moment. It slammed onto the New York Times bestseller list at number 1 in January 2012, then stayed on the list for the entire year; selling in excess of 1 million copies in the USA and being voted as TIME magazine’s Number 1 book of 2012. This enabled John to sell out his one-off show last week at New York’s Carnegie Hall in under 48 hours.

And it’s not just teens raving about it. The Fault in Our Stars was gradually, and now is rapidly becoming one of the most talked about books amongst adult readers, not just standing its own ground, but owning it. Many YA phenomena have crossed over – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Twilight, The Hunger Games – but I challenge you to find a book that will grip you, shake you up and make you think quite like this one.

One of the 80,000 five star ratings on Goodreads.com (and yes, I’ve trawled through most of them!) sums it up beautifully:

‘I don't think any other book has impacted me in ways which I can't even describe myself.’

And so, as John Green arrives on our shores to begin his 2013 UK and Ireland tour, I’ve got a feeling this is another defining moment.

For me personally, I’m finally meeting my favourite author, the one person growing up that I never thought I’d meet – given that the title was previously held by Jane Austen. For everyone else, welcome to the world of John Green. This is just the beginning.

John Green is in the UK and Ireland this February 2013 for a five-city tour across London, Swindon, Manchester, Glasgow and Dublin. Plus, a live-streamed Puffin Virtually Live event from Sadler’s Wells on Monday 4th February at 2pm (watch John Green's Puffin Virtually Live Event On Demand). 

Gemma Green is Marketing Manager at Penguin Children's [and a massive John Green fan].