Uncategorized

As the author of eight non-fiction books, I am most often asked why did I chose to write a particular title. The answer is that my books are usually written out of obsession: to slake my personal thirst for knowledge on the subject in question – almost irrespective of whether the topic would interest anyone else. Fortunately, most have. I started early, writing my first title, The War Walk: A Journey Along the Western Front, when I was in my twenties. This, my most personal book, was a homage to my late father, Frank Jones, a very elderly dad who had been in his sixties when I was born. As

It’s the season to do the rounds of senior schools and my 10-year-old son and I have been jostling through the crowds to glimpse science labs and drama workshops for the past month. Open days for the top state schools have been heaving. At a state boarding school rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted (boarding fees aren’t subject to VAT), the head apologised for lengthy queues to register, get coffee, join a tour. Another 200 people had turned up in addition to the 600 booked in. Among them, I spotted several families whose children are currently at local prep schools. Labour starts charging VAT on school fees from January. But an estimated

Japanese culture is rapidly colonising the West, from our theatres to our cinemas, to our streaming services and our bookshops, to the food we eat and the clothes we wear, even the footballers we cheer on. This year alone I must have written half a dozen articles on different areas where Japanese culture is making its mark worldwide (and especially in the UK). Some are quite surprising, such as novels. By one estimate, a quarter of the two million translated novels sold in the UK last year were Japanese. It has become almost de rigueur to be seen reading the latest volume by Banana Yoshimoto, Sayaka Murata, et al. Though