Ever read a book that spoils reading books for you? I am reading an absolutely brilliant novel at the moment. Trouble is, I won’t, though not for lack of trying, be able to find a better one this year. I won’t be able to think, heck, I could do that anymore, or at least for a while, and I will have to raise the bar with my own writing. She makes me feel like a comical foreigner, who inadvertently butchers the language.

TaDa! The book is ‘The Centre of Winter’ by Marya Hornbacher. She wrote a powerful autobiography some time back, but this novel is luminous! Marvellous! Insightful! Superb…

It is about a family coping with the suicide of the father, written from the perspectives of the precocious six-year-old daughter, the mentally ill twelve-year-old son and the mother. The author has an amazing ability to pare away all words that get in the way. My favourite line so far: ‘What can you say of a man like that? He drank.’ (The daughter revealing her father’s alcoholism).

Read it. If you enjoyed ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ by Barbara Kingsolver, you’ll love this.

Stupid good writing.

Right now, the other way I enjoy language is when my children get inventive with it. The way Hannah can create subtle nuances that seem oddly correct. The way a child’s logic makes me rethink the way we communicate.

James caught the thread quite quickly when we were explaining what a vegetarian is. He muddled it a bit, but for the next few days, he was saying that someone who doesn’t eat cheese is a ‘cheesarian’, and olives: an ‘olivarian’. I didn’t correct him and say that those would be people who only ate those things, I just let him gave fun.

Does it mean you are drinking too much when your two year old asks you if you want a glass of wine with your supper?

Did I have one anyway?

Does Donald Trump need an extreme makeover?