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Novelist Julie Myerson and her husband, screenwriter Jonathan Myerson, offer widely differing views on what has been labelled the most depressing relationship film ever HER VIEW: 'After the sex, prepare for real life or be torn apart' How many terrible marriages begin this way? Dean and Cindy have only known each other a matter of weeks and seem to have shared no more than a few laughs and a few orgasms when she accidentally gets pregnant. Cindy has ambitions. She wants to study to be a doctor. With Dean's support, she books an abortion, only to find she can't go through with it. Dean, meanwhile, who works for a removals firm and doesn't seem to boast much by way of professional ambition, is understanding. He puts his arms around her, says maybe they should be "a family". And so they marry, while knowing almost nothing about each other except that, for the moment anyway, they're sexually compatible. Five or six years later, although Dean does seem t...

With more than 400 libraries under threat of closure due to budget cuts, campaigners will today take part in mass read-ins, author events and more. Follow the action here Tell us about the level of protest in your area with our interactive map 9.45am: Lots of activity about Save Our Libraries day on Twitter, with the #savelibraries hashtag. The hashtag was started by Shropshire ICT lecturer @MarDixon back in January, while she was doing her laundry . It was hugely successful, trending worldwide, with authors Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman joining in. Today, Mar tweets: . 9.24am: Cindy Jeffries, one of the Gloucestershire's " flying authors " has been in touch: Cindy Jeffries has taken off and is heading for Lechdale library. ETA 9.30. She will be racing against children's author John Dougherty, writer and performance poet Marcus Moore and author Katie Fforde to visit as many libraries as possible in the county today. 9.20am: Good morning, and happy Save Our Librarie...

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky below. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. All I ask is that you don't post random photos that you find online. Kitty Midnight on a rare sunny winter day. I can't help but wonder what was going through her mind when I took this photo. I thought of so many captions I could put under this one. I almost chose "Does this chair make me look fat?" but then I thought about it and realized that she could care less about her weight. Oh for the life of a house cat! This post 2011 At Home With Books . All Rights Reserved. If youre reading this on a site other than "http://athomewithbooks.blogspot.com" or its RSS feed , be aware that this post has been stolen and is bei...

Updates A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley Set on a prairie farm in Iowa, Smiley's novel tells how the three daughters of Larry Cook struggle over the control of the land and of their family memories. It is the plot of King Lear moved to the mid-West, with the added twist that it is narrated by the sister who has taken the role of Goneril. The Last Weekend by Blake Morrison More Shakespeare. Morrison's novel transposes Othello to contemporary England and tells the story from the point of view of Iago. He is now schoolteacher Ian Goade, who sets out to destroy his hated rival Olly Moore (get it?) and his wife Daisy during a weekend in a country house. In this version, Ian has plenty of reasons to resent posh, blithely successful Olly. The Infinities by John Banville It might seem odd to have a story apparently set in modern Ireland that is narrated by the god Hermes, but Banville's novel is updating Amphitryon , that began with Plautus and has already been updated by Mo...

Shares in parent company HMV rise as speculation mounts about intentions of entrepreneur turned novelist Tim Waterstone The entrepreneur turned novelist Tim Waterstone was today considering making a sixth bid in 12 years for the eponymous bookshop he founded in 1982. Shares in Waterstone's owner, the struggling entertainment group HMV, shot up by 9% today as speculation mounted that it would put the bookseller up for sale and that its founder was plotting a bid with Alexander Mamut, a Russian billionaire with a 6.1% stake in HMV. "I just can't comment at this stage. Sorry to be obtuse," Waterstone said when asked if he was considering a bid with Mamut, who owns Evroset, a Russian mobile phone retailer. Waterstone, who last month said he was still interested in the bookshop, previously invested with Mamut in Bookberry, a now bankrupt Russian bookstore chain. HMV declined to comment, but sources said the group, whose high street music business has been hit by online riv...

Novelist who drew her readers into the world of the past with her acclaimed crime series The novelist Diana Norman, who has died aged 77, was best known for her historical crime series featuring the 12th-century medical examiner Adelia Aguilar, written under the pen name of Ariana Franklin. The first book in the series, Mistress of the Art of Death, was published to critical acclaim in 2007 and won the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award in the UK, aswell as prizes in the US and Sweden. Always modest, Norman confessed her astonishment at its reception, saying: "I'm not used to being feted, being married to a TV presenter, Barry Norman. I'm more accustomed to being trampled in the rush to get his autograph than being publicised myself. I'm not complaining, though." Born Mary Diana Narracott, she grew up first in London and then in Devon, where her mother took her toescape the blitz. She left school aged 15, butwith her keen intelligence and with journalism in her ...

Phil Bradley found messages of individual responsibility and collective endeavour in posters from the first and second world wars

Guest blog: Ken Kutsch explains how the We Love Libraries video came to be and how there is no excuse to be apathetic It's amazing how time flies when you are involved with a protest campaign. I met fellow filmmaker Garfield Kennedy one month ago on 2 January in a restaurant in Glastonbury although it now feels like it was years ago. We spent several hours talking about our past film projects and by the end of the session, our protest film project, We Love Libraries , was born. Within a couple of days we had brought in Kevin Redpath who runs a progressive film production company in Glastonbury. We decided that we wanted to make a short film that would do the following: 1. Draw awareness to the campaign to save libraries in Somerset 2. Draw awareness to the campaign nationally 3. Encourage people across the country to join a local campaign and protest library closures 4. Encourage local and national politicians to wise up and listen to what the public's feelings are on the sub...

We would like you to help us build up a picture of the level of protest to save libraries across the UK on Saturday 5 February. Here's how to do it On Saturday 5 February, at least 80 events will be taking place across the UK as people protest against library closures . We would like you to help us build up a picture of the level of protest to save libraries across the UK. Give each protest that is taking place at a library near you a score for the intensity of its efforts (on a scale of 1-5 - see below) and we'll plot the results on this map . All you have to do is tweet your postcode and score with the hashtag #savelibraries eg NW10 3 #savelibraries or CV32 4 #savelibraries . If you don't use Twitter, you can enter the information using the form next to the map. We'll update the map regularly with your findings. What level of protest is taking place at your local library? 1) One person holding a "Sssh" sign 2) Several people have gathered to protest 3) An o...

Some 80 events nationwide scheduled in co-ordinated day of action against library closures Click here for an interactive map of all the scheduled events Author Philip Pullman has described the spontaneous surge of popular support for libraries threatened with closure by local authority cuts which will see Save Our Libraries Day protests taking place up and down the UK tomorrow, Saturday 5 February as "one of the first great shots across the bows of the cuts battleship". Pullman, author of the celebrated Northern Lights trilogy, compared the activism over the threatened library closures to the student protests over tuition fees, saying: "I hope it'll bring to the attention of even the thickest-headed local council member that there is a great deal more passionate feeling about libraries than they bargained for." At least 80 events will take place tomorrow, with a roster of notable authors coming out against the cuts, which now threaten more than 400 libraries ...

Sometimes science writers struggle to convey the magnitude of the thing that they are trying to explain. Carl Sagan fared better in that struggle than most as this book of his collected writings will attest Our next Science Book Club choice is Profiles of the Future by Arthur C Clarke which Tim will review on March 4 Nearly all organic molecules absorb infrared and ultraviolet light. If the planet's ambient light was confined to either, everything would be black. Plants absorb red and blue light, but reflect green, which explains the colour of foliage. Anthocyanin is the pigment of roses and violets. In acid, it turns red and in alkaline environments it reflects blue. Roses are red and violets are blue because their pH is different. Middle C is 263 Hertz, or 263 waves of atmospheric compression and attenuation every second, and even someone stone deaf could identify Middle C, at least with an amplifier and an oscilloscope. So ignore that question about the sound of a tree falling...

Some 80 events nationwide scheduled in co-ordinated day of action against library closures Click here for an interactive map of all the scheduled events Author Philip Pullman has described the spontaneous surge of popular support for libraries threatened with closure by local authority cuts which will see Save Our Libraries Day protests taking place up and down the UK tomorrow, Saturday 5 February as "one of the first great shots across the bows of the cuts battleship". Pullman, author of the celebrated Northern Lights trilogy, compared the activism over the threatened library closures to the student protests over tuition fees, saying: "I hope it'll bring to the attention of even the thickest-headed local council member that there is a great deal more passionate feeling about libraries than they bargained for." At least 80 events will take place tomorrow, with a roster of notable authors coming out against the cuts, which now threaten more than 400 libraries ...

These temples of learning have been under attack for years depleted of professionals and filled with council money-spinners I have been a member of my local library since I was four. I am still using the library card I was given when I first joined (its authenticity is proven by the fact that it is signed by my mum, not me), and it is probably the public service that I make the most use of. Despite this, I wasn't as enthusiastic as many about Philip Pullman's call to arms in defence of libraries against funding cuts. Last year I worked part-time in a small branch library, and what I found there was a service which, after a long process of erosion, no longer offers what many think our public libraries should. I worked alongside the most dedicated staff imaginable. They were keenly aware of the crucial role the library played as the hub of the local community, were on first-name terms with regulars and ran the parent and toddler groups with huge enthusiasm. We had no professio...

There's a wealth of different subjects available for this month's homework Given the degree of chaos surrounding the circumstances of his election, it was interesting that Michel Martin, the newly anointed leader of the Fianna Fil party, chose to focus on his educational background in his acceptance speech . Martin was at pains to point out that in his family, he and his siblings were "part of the first generation to have a chance to complete second-level education and go on to university." Meanwhile, in the UK, after a period in which grammar school alumni held the reins of power there, it seems that Westminster has returned to its traditional status of private club for the products of the public school system . Schooling, it seems, matters, even among the great and good. It is, after all, one of the great universals of human existence in modern western society, albeit one that is relatively recent in its universality. And schooldays, as parents never cease to remind...

Friday Finds is hosted at Should Be Reading . Last week I found the following books and added them to my wish list: Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli - Releases February 8, 2011. Lisa Napoli was in the grip of a crisis, dissatisfied with her life and her work as a radio journalist. When a chance encounter with a handsome stranger presented her with an opportunity to move halfway around the world, Lisa left behind cosmopolitan Los Angeles for a new adventure in the ancient Himalayan kingdom of Bhutansaid to be one of the happiest places on earth. Long isolated from industrialization and just beginning to open its doors to the modern world, Bhutan is a deeply spiritual place, devoted to environmental conservation and committed to the happiness of its peoplein fact, Bhutan measures its success in Gross National Happiness rather than in GNP. In a country without a single traffic light, its citizens are believed to be among the most content in the world. To Lisa, it seemed to be ...

A few weeks ago I posted about Alison Weir's upcoming non-fiction release on Mary Boleyn and now I have the cover for you! It is being released in both the US and UK under different titles. UK.... Mary Boleyn: The Great and Infamous Whore . Released on October 6, 2011 US.... Mary Boleyn: The Mistress of Kings . Released on October 4, 2011 There is still no official synopsis that I can find, but here is a blurb from Weir's website: In this book, the first full-scale, in-depth biography of Henry VIII's famous mistress, Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne, his second queen, Alison Weir explodes much of the mythology that surrounds Mary Boleyn and uncovers the truth about one of the most misunderstood figures of the Tudor age. Her extensive, forensic research has facilitated a new portrayal, in which she reveals, for example: * The probable nature of the relationship between the Boleyn sisters. * New evidence about the reputation of Mary's mother, Elizabeth Howard, who wa...

The Works of the Earls of Rochester and Roscommon ran to more than 20 editions. Voyeuristic verse may explain why Poetry is getting so popular these days see Jo Shapcott's victory in the Costa book of the year award that perhaps it doesn't need smart marketing ideas to scale the bestseller lists. Even so, modern poetry publishers might consider using an 18th-century ruse to attract sales: slipping in a few pornographic verses to pique readers' interest. Dr Claudine van Hensbergen, a researcher at Oxford University, thinks she may have stumbled on the reason for the success of an apparently serious volume called The Works of the Earls of Rochester and Roscommon, which ran to more than 20 editions and was reprinted throughout the 18th century. Bound in at the back of the 1714 edition, van Hensbergen found, was a section called the Cabinet of Love. It contained three poems, "the organising principle of which," van Hensbergen says, "appears to be the dildo...

Joyce Carol Oates Paramount Pictures A still from The Fighter (2010) The Fighter might more accurately have been titled The Fighter and His Family : its a boisterous, brilliantly orchestrated ensemble piece at the paradoxically near-still center of which is an Irish-American boxer (Mark Wahlberg), whose once-promising career, like his grim hometown, Lowell, Massachusetts, is on what appears to be an inevitable downward spiral. Just nominated for seven Academy Awardsincluding best picture and Christian Bale as supporting actor, the current favorite in that categorythe film is based on the life and career of former junior welterweight champion Micky Ward, most famous for his three brutally hard-fought bouts with Arturo Gatti in 20022003. It is also a group portrait of working-class Irish-Americans in a blighted, postindustrial landscape: the brawling, clannish, emotionally combustible Ward-Eklund family for whom Micky is the great hope and from whom, if he wants to survive, let ...