A Book To Read in Amsterdam

Posted By Daisy

 

THE last three months have been utterly lovely. I met a man. A gentlemanly, kind, generous, funny and tall one. He’s my brother's friend and is six years younger than me. Since meeting on St Stephen’s night, we’ve dined in gorgeous restaurants, browsed a car boot sale and smooched while cycling through the Killarney National Park. I cooked my first roast for him, had some hilarious nights out and spent many evenings on the sofa with my legs thrown over his chatting and watching ‘The Birds’ or ‘Skyfall’. And last week, we went to Amsterdam.

I decided to be a bit quirky and booked a studio apartment via Air BNB in the gorgeous area of Prisengracht (near the Anne Frank House) for 3 nights. However, quirky meant bookshelves full of CD’s and books, huge paintings of naked men and women on every wall, some tired Philippe Starck furniture and a fur throw on the couch which I refused to touch. The location was amazing – but using someone elses non-fluffy towels and standing on their flat bathmath every morning is just not romantic.

 

Amsterdam is fast. The city soundscape is the whoosh of a bike or the bell of a tram. It’s also achingly cool. I peeked through the windows of countless canal-side tall houses and spied modern magazine-style interiors.

 We spent an afternoon browsing the boutiques on Prisengracht and the Nine Streets. It's all vintage furniture, light fittings and even a shop devoted to Japanese Bento boxes. How he laughed when I coveted a paint-speckled wooden ladder (€60), and told me he’d give me the one he has in the shed at home.

 We sampled the famous crumbly apple pie in Cafe Winkel.

I braved the queues for the Anne Frank House at 8:30am one morning, trotting across the bridge as fast as I could while the 20-deep queue filled up before my eyes. I touched the bookcase and saw Anne's patch of blue sky through the attic window.  A glass panel on one wall preserves the sisters heights marked out in pencil on the old wallpaper, and a magazine montage of movie stars carefully cut from Anne's favourite magazine.

 I thought the Red Light District (just off Dam Square) at midnight would disturb me, but it was funny. All the ladies posing in the windows of their booths reminded me of Roald Dahl’s description of the giants lounging around in 'The BFG.' Wearing stockings and suspenders, they smoked languidly or chatted to their window buddy or on their phones, while smiling at the gangs of (mainly) men walking past. I watched as a man entered a booth and the young woman inside coquettishly took off his furry Russian hat and tried it on. In the darkest, loneliest corner near the church, there were two older, fatter models in the window. Rates are cheaper off the beaten track. It’s €150 to rent a booth for eight hours, and prices for punters start at €50. And no, according to a local barman, the punters don’t have the luxury of a shower afterwards -  a spray detergent is used.

The funniest fact I read in my guide book was that they experimented with putting men in the red light district windows once, but it just didn't catch on!

              Grubs up

On the last night, we dined in De Kas (the best restaurant in Amsterdam, apparently). It’s in a huge glass building surrounded by greenhouses with home-grown produce. A glamorous lady and her friends sat next to us, and a family of four sat at a high table in the kitchen, watching the chefs cook while they ate. There’s no menu in here - you eat what you’re given. And every course is described in detail by the staff.

The food was nice, but everything was concentrated on The Up-Sell, with the waitress mentioning the cheeseboard throughout the meal, telling us threateningly that 'we'd talk about it later.'

I kept thinking of the story of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’. Were we all fools eating the same meal and oohing and ahhing at the miniscule portions, reverential explanations and overpriced aperitifs? On the way out, the waitress held our coats and offered us an apple from a big sculpted bowl beside the door. I nearly started laughing as I took a tiny windfall and put it in my pocket.

I like small portions but he was still hungry and we stopped for drinks and a huge plate of tapas in the lovely Café T’Smalle in Prisengracht.

                                             Cafe T'Smalle - because we were still hungry after spending €150 on dinner in De Kas.

We had a freshly-made Wally's waffle in the Albert Cuypt market, before wandering down to the Heineken Museum. Not my first choice, it was actually a very enjoyable and relaxing way to spend a few hours, learning about the history of the beer, customising our own Heineken bottles, and culminating in a few free glasses of Heineken.

We pootled down the canals in a hop-on/hop-off canal boat tour and I could have stayed there forever. A native taxi driver told me that his favourite summertime activity is to rent a boat with his friends and spend the day on the canal.

 

It's Wally's Waffles or pickled herring in the Albert Cuypt market - which would you choose?

There must've been something in the water in Amsterdam because we decided to break up when we arrived home. We are better as just friends.

But this isn’t a sad story. It’s a hopeful one. It taught me that there are amazing men out there who treat women like princesses, and are respectful and fun. I won’t call off the search just yet.

'Perfect People' by Peter James

I had never read any Peter James before, but when my sister gave me this book I trusted her judgement. It's about a couple who are grieving the death of the four-year-old son who died from a rare genetic disorder. They want another baby but are afraid to risk him having the same genetic condition. Along comes the dodgy Dr Leo Dettore, who promises them a genetically perfect child, with choice of hair, eye colour and sporting ability.

This is un-put-downable and the ending still makes me shiver.

 

*In case you think I sound too blasé about the break-up, it took me a week to lift my suitcase from the hall where he left it, and I’ve watched at least 15 episodes of my Gossip Girl box-set since then. And I’m still wearing the bracelet he gave me for Valentine’s Day.

 

 

 

 

 

A Book to Read During Book Camp in the Country

Posted by Daisy

 

 

ON a muddy walk through the Berkshire countryside, three deer with white bottoms stand perfectly still in the middle of a field and stare at us, long-eared hares bob up and down in the distance, and pheasants fly out of the underbrush as pink-wellied Cesca, CEO of Book Camp tells me that Kate Middleton attended her school for a term, and that her cousin is Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

 

 

It’s afternoon break at Book Camp – I’ve already had a two-hour morning session with women’s fiction author Rowan Coleman, written over 1000 words in a word race session, scanned through a book on plotting, and begun planning my novel.

Last year, I decided to embrace my inner geek. In ‘The Happiness Project’, Gretchen Rubin urges people to just be themselves. So in a bid to ‘Be Daisy, I joined a writing group and set up a blog with two other girls. Irish author Roisin Meaney has said that a weekend writing retreat gave her the impetus to quit her day job and finally kick-start her writing career. So when I spotted a four-day bookcamp in Berkshire on Twitter over the Christmas holidays, I immediately signed up.

 

 

Each morning began with a two-hour writing session around the huge kitchen table with Rowan. We did writing exercises and listened to each other’s plot descriptions, and by day three I was no longer embarrassed about reading out my paltry word count or over-descriptive text in front of the others.

 

Five of us stayed in the converted country barn, with new students joining us for daily sessions. One girl wrote a short story, another re-worked her chick-lit novel (it was fascinating to have read her first chapters and then listen to Rowan edit it), and I started a story about my grandmother and her sisters in 1950’s Ireland. And for anyone with writer’s block, there was a never ending supply of tea, rosewater cupcakes, apple crumble and jam roly poly as well as a pile of shiny ‘How to Write’ books on the antique writing desk to peruse.

 

 

It was lovely to be embroiled in a literary world, listening to Cesca and Rowan talking about authors and reviewers by their first names (‘Kirsty’ and ‘Katy’ and ‘Cressida’) over a roast chicken dinner, or having Rowan critique my short story over an evening glass of wine. And it was strange to sit in a tiny bedroom with Caroline Hogg, senior commissioning editor at Pan Macmillan, listening to her feedback on my (fledgling) book plot and reeling off a list of similar-themed book titles to study.

The main thing I learned from Book Camp is to stop being so precious about writing and just write. Seeing Rowan write and edit daily, while showing us iPhone pictures of her children at home also made me realise how much dedication and hard work it takes to write a book.

 

WHAT I LEARNED FROM IT:

• Do hour-long word races and just vomit the words onto the page. They can be cleaned up and polished later.

• Do a plot outline on which to hang all the beautiful descriptions.

• Use less description – anyone can write description.
• Write for at least 30 minutes per day.

• Aim for at least 1000 words per week.

• There is no muse involved in writing. It takes lots of plotting and planning, and at least 3 edits.
• Do proper planning and a complete plot outline before you begin, or otherwise you might end up having to delete 60,000 words.

• Spend time formulating an Elevator Pitch - a two-sentence synopsis of your book.

• Editors and agents love when authors describe their books in terms of films/other books e.g. My book is 'Bridget Jones meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'.

• The term ‘Chick-lit’ is frowned upon. It’s called ‘Women’s Fiction’.
• Women’s fiction may be easy to read but it is very difficult to write.
 

Check out Cesca's 'Beat the Block' videos at www.novelicious.com

 

 

Elevator Pitch: A group of college students loose their best friend in a terrible accident on holidays in Ibiza. The story follows the lives of the gang as they each struggle with a secret sadness and guilt over the death of their friend.

The best I can come up with today is: It's 'One Day' the book meets 'One Day' the film. Maybe this is because we hear the thoughts of a male and female protagonist - and hearing a male point of view is unusual in the women's fiction genre.

I read this book in two days and loved its intelligent grittiness with a happy ending.

 

Next Monday: A Book to Read after a city break in Amsterdam.

 

 

 

Celebrating the Irish

                                                      by Matilda

The whole world appears to be behind the Irish on the 17th March. Half a million extra people descended on the capital for the weekends celebrations. Where else should you be on St Patrick's Day?A rhetorical question apparently. One woman travelled solo from Istabul. She said her friends asked her why she would do this, to which her reply was - 'Why not?' The 500euro a night for a hotel in Dublin didn't deter her. She found a more reasonable resting place in an upmarket hostel. She was kitted out in the green, white and gold without holding back. She was here to celebrate what it means to be Irish.

An inner city grandmother had been queuing since 10.30 with her two grandchildren aged 3 and 5. They were dressed as a bear and zebra. I think the warmth of their hats contributed to this, not anything to do with being Irish. With green ponchos and matching wellies, she knew what to expect that day. The ache in her  back and arms from supporting them on the barriers was not part of the bargain. Yet, she entertained and cajoled the children for almost two hours until the parade started. It was their first parade she said. I admired her for taking them out on her own on a day like that but she scoffed at me. It wouldn't be St Patrick's Day without the parade and some rain. What was the point in watching it on TV? Is this what it means to be Irish?

Shauna Gilligan is a new Irish writer to watch. Her debut novel Happiness Comes from Nowhere is exquisitely written, emotional, poignant and real. It charts the life of four main characters who are interconnected not only through familial ties but through a similiar journey of discovery experiencing isolation, societal pressure and expectation. They deal with this in different ways explored through shifting points of view by Gilligan. This could be seen as deliberately trying to make the structure complicated in an attempt to be different but it works. Sepp, Mary, Dirk and Sheila are 3D,we share their humiliation, expectations, anxieties. Too closely sometimes. Gillligan treats delicate issues such as depression and suicide with a keen understanding, a rawness that is not overdone or condescending. Her characters are not in a faceless place - Dublin comes to life through her words. All aspects are shown as the story transcends decades and social classes. It's a vibrant city, throbbing with party life yet a lonliness and isolation behind closed doors.

Happiness Comes from Nowhere is a philosophical book in it's subject matter. Gilligan has a keen insight into the human psyche but it is not a heavy book to read. The characters don't allow it. They are just looking for the answers to questions we all have.

A book to read during mental health maintenance; happy mother's day!

Posted by Jenny

 

 

 

 

A few weekends ago I managed to take off a few hours of mummy sanity time among the shops. It was Saturday morning and the whole week I had prepared my husband that I was going shopping on my own and I meant the kind of shopping that didn’t involve groceries or children’s clothes.

When the day finally arrived I planned for an early morning start and was all packed and ready at 8.30am. Now, the best way in our house, for me specifically, to make an escape is by telling the kids that mummy has to go to work. Anywhere else usually means that they can come too. So that Saturday morning, mummy had to go to work for a few hours….. after planting a kiss on three little heads and a jolly wave at the husband, I quickly made my gettaway out the front door and although feeling somewhat guilty, but not for very long, I got into the car and drove off.

At this point the built up anticipation had me giddy to such a degree that I was singing makey-uppy songs behind the wheel. For a person who considers shopping one of the finest past-times available to female kind, I rarely take the time to go. The recession has little to do with this, as the activity “going shopping” in my head doesn’t actually mean that I go out and buy stuff. It means that I go out and pretend that I’m going to buy stuff. It involves extensive perusal of shop widows before continuing to browse inside. I might buy something, I might not. Absolutely vital to making the shopping experience a successful one is taking the time to have a latte and a scone. Hence the early hour... Of course shops would still be closed, but I came prepared with my kindle in my handbag.

Once arrived, I savoured the moment of entering the shopping centre. That gentle blast of warm air when I walk through the double doors act like a herald welcoming me to the land of milk and honey. Instantly the scents change from cold air and car fumes to a mixture of warm air, cleaned floors and coffee. A few other women arrived around the same time as I did, walking with a similar looking purpose in their stride. I imagined them also having made a highly anticipated escape that day.

Anyway, after I ordered a medium latte and picked out a fat scone with raisins sticking out (raspberry jam!) I picked a seat with a view, so I could keep an eye on the shutters of Debenhams. A coffee break was important, but I did need to keep my eye on the time.

Then…when I sat down.... that moment had finally arrived…. I eased back into the seat, stretched out my legs and slowly released a deep breath. Hmmmm. Shopping is fun, but it’s this moment I enjoyed the most. Sitting down… on my own…. few people around…. music in the background…  enjoying my scone, sipping my latte and reading a novel. Aaahhhh… Stress is for Monday.

 



 

Before hitting the shops, I read the last few pages of “Angel Interrupted” by Chaz McGee, a pseudo name used by Katy Munger. It’s the second book in the series: dead detective helps living detective solve murder cases. The living detective isn’t aware that she’s receiving help. More accurately, she sort of wonders at some level is she’s receiving help, but she hasn’t gotten it confirmed. Book three isn’t out yet, but I probably will read it when it’s published.

 

A Book to read about travelling

Posted by Jenny

 

 

A few years ago, when we were still young and beautiful, my now husband/then boyfriend (NH/TB) and I went travelling for a year. We spend two months in India, three months and a bit in South East Asia, approximately three months in Australia, two weeks in Fiji, a week in the States, a month in Mexico and Belize. I think it’s safe to say that following a year of laissez faire and sunshine, it took us the best part of a year to settle back in a routine at home.

It was an amazing experience. Travelling certainly has the potential to broaden the mind. It was also quite lovely to be tanned for a while. My skin tone is sallow, which after having lived in Ireland for roughly 12 years, tends to look green due to the lack of sun (I’m not referring to daylight hours!). It was also interesting to see my NH/TB change colour nearly on a daily basis. He would go from white, to pink, to red, to red-and-blistered, to pealing and back to white. It took him at least six months to get a sort of base tan (dark white).  

During my year before adulthood struck, I did all the unthinkables: I stepped barefoot on a fat cockroach in the dark in Bangkok when I got up at night to go to the toilet. The wet crunching noise was one I worked hard on blocking from my mind. I kissed my NH/TB after he ate a fried scorpion in Phnom Penn. I learned to haggle in India over a bottle of water. I asked a lovely Indonesian woman in Bali if she was pregnant. She told me that she was just fat. I overheard some ehm… interesting conversations on the Greyhound bus from LA to Dallas between men with mullets and moustaches, wearing lumberjack shirts and red baseball caps. I managed to refrain from taking a picture of a “cop” in the same police car as they have in the movies! I’ve done the food poisoning, the mosquito bites and the taking photographs of locals while pretending to snap pictures of buildings.

In Sydney we bought a van to “do” the East coast of Australia that continued to break down and couldn’t drive faster than 60 km/hour. In hindsight (which is a great thing) we realized that the slightly older couple who sold us the van were painfully aware that they were selling us a dud. The woman gave us a parting gift of a huge bag full of chocolates and muesli bars. We were so taken aback by that lovely gesture before excitedly driving off with our new van and unshaken trust in the human nature being good in essence. Eventually we realized that she must have felt really guilty for selling that dud to two travelling youngsters who paid for it with their own cash! I sold Italian silk ties for six weeks as a door to door sales girl for that cash!

My NH/TB used to hold his two fingers at the ready every time a car overtook us while making lewd road rage type gestures at us. Driving at a constant low speed involved some serious vigilance on my behalf as my NH/TB used to speed up unconsciously when hearing certain songs on the radio. I remember a certain Nickelback song being responsible for near engine blow-ups.

Oh the memories… Absolutely delightful! Would I do it again? Absolutely not! After a year of living out of a backpack, smelling like a backpack and being told things like “Keep the bathroom door closed because rats will climb out of the sewer at night.” I think I have earned my right to a little luxury when I go away for a few days. To this day, luxury for me still is: an ensuite bathroom and hot water. There is nothing like the simple pleasure of a hot shower after a long day. Don’t care what the temperature outside is!

Reading the Camper Van Coast by Martin Dorey triggered this. I have fond memories of proudly producing culinary delights on a shoestring budget in the van. Plain pasta with a scoop of pesto out of a jar can look very impressive in the right circumstances!

 

Martin means business though! This book contains a chapter on camping in winter! I’m more of a fire, couch, hot chocolate inside-the-house-while-it’s-raining-outside kind of girl. During my year of freedom I got my advanced Padi cert. I was even convinced I would dive off the coast of the West of Ireland! Amazing, the deceptive power of the mind…. Tried it once! During summer time I might add. Hmmm, fire, hot chocolate and couch can be very appealing during an Irish summer as well….

A Book to Read on the Train Home after a Great Weekend in the Big Smoke.

Posted by Daisy

 

THE last time I went to Dublin, my ex-boyfriend forgot his wallet and encouraged me to pay for everything. The time before that, my car broke down and it took me a month of driving my little brother's ancient Polo (without power steering) before I had a chance to collect it. This weekend I took the train and had great fun.

On Friday night, we stayed in and ate tapas with my friend Dee and her fiancé.

 

On Saturday, we went to a nearby spa and indulged in mini-facials and hot stone massages.

On Saturday night, we had dinner and cocktails with Matilda (from this blog) at Fade St Social.

Fade St Social: Where a big-haired model girl in a short red skater skirt and see-through tutu dines with her friends, silver haired men chat to forty-something blonds in the bar upstairs, a girl in corduroy shorts, black tights and a glint in her eye stands casually at the bar watching the barman  pour cocktails before swiping one off the counter, where the doorman is lanky and interesting-looking and one of the waiters looks like Smith from ‘Sex and the City’.

I had read both positive and negative reviews of this recently-opened restaurant– the complaints were mostly about the food and the snooty waiting staff, but they all seemed very friendly and smiley, and the flatbread pizza’s were nice.

www.2fm.rte.ie

 

As we were leaving, (and fortified by a few mojitos) I cornered celebrity chef Dylan McGrath on the stairs and asked him about his favourite books – he said (very nicely) ‘I don’t have time to read. I’m actually quite stupid’. I told him that was unlikely, and then the restaurant fire alarm went off. Finally, he said ‘The Day of the Jackal’, and excused himself to sort out the alarm, shouting back at us ‘I liked The Pearl too’ as he ran down the stairs.

www.chrismcmorrow.net

Then we had a drink downstairs in Bruxelles and sat quietly beside two older men wearing Anthrax and Ozzy Osbourne t-shirts.

The staff at the trendy Vintage Cocktail Club.

Orla loved Philip Pullman's 'The Golden Compass' as a child, and Paul 'Pablo' the doorman loved 'The Wizard of Oz', The Beano, and The Dandy.

 

We jumped on a tuk-tuk to the Vintage Cocktail Club (VCC), whooping at every bump as Paulo the Brazilian driver sped around all the cobbled street corners, and Matilda struggled to stay on board with her legs hanging out the side. We eventually found the hidden doorway, and Paul (known as the friendliest doorman in Dublin) answered and led us up the carpeted stairs, where there were gold ceilings, cream-and-white striped wallpaper, soft armchairs, and an extensive cocktail menu. As it was late, the VCC was quiet – I think it would be a lovely spot for a weekend date. We drank three Zombies before jumping back into a tuk-tuk to Café En Seine to meet some friends.

Paulo's favourite book is Robert Kiyosaki's 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad.'

At Café En Seine, we talked to two Moroccan and Kuwaiti medical students, one who won a scholarship to university in Dublin, and was forced to do medicine by his family but who actually wanted to be a teacher or a journalist. I chatted to a homeless man with a red sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders who he told me that one of his favourite books was Jeffrey Archer’s ‘Kane and Abel’.

At 3:30am, it was time for a taxi home, eat some re-heated chips and jump into bed.

 

Mildly hungover on the train home to Cork, I happily ate cheese sandwiches and drank tea while reading ‘The Vanishing Point’ by Val McDermid. It's an easy-reading book about a copywriter and a reality TV star, a stalker and a missing child. The similarities in the plot to the life of the late Jade Goody (a British reality TV star who died from cancer three years ago) are discomfiting.  I'm looking forward to finishing this slightly-thrilling thriller, but I know I won't remember it when I'm finished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Books to Read When You’re a Foreigner

Guest Post 1: Welcome Roisin Meaney!

Irish author Roisin Meaney doesn’t like standing still. About to publish her ninth novel, Meaney has worked, written and played all over the world – and all with a book in hand to suit each location.

Much as I love living in Ireland – despite its, er, interesting weather – I get the urge every now and again to pack my bags and go for a wander somewhere else. I can’t imagine that I’d ever want to call any other place my permanent home, but there’s something about moving for a period of time to another country that’s always given me a bit of a kick.

Is it the freedom that being a stranger bestows, the back story you can concoct for yourself that nobody can contradict? Is it the plethora of new experiences you find, from the different taste of milk to the unfamiliar landline ringtone to the wrong-way-around road markings? Or is it simply the better weather? (I’m always careful to choose places with a heck of a lot more blue skies than home.) Whatever the reason, being a foreigner delights me almost as much as my eventual return to Ireland – and somehow, after every period of exile, there’s a book that I’ll forever associate with that particular place. Let me pick out a few.

 

When I was twenty-two, much to my parents’ horror I packed in my still-shiny-around-the-edges teaching job and took off for Zimbabwe. For the following two years I taught English to teenage Africans, many of whom had been boy soldiers in that country’s war of independence. One day the entire staff lined up to shake hands with Robert Mugabe, who’d come to officially open our school. I also caught my first fish in Zimbabwe, flew in a six-seater plane over Victoria Falls, took regular bus trips where I was the only white passenger and fell in love properly for the first time. (He was Scottish.)

My bookish memory of Africa? A copy of Anne Tyler’s Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant that a teaching colleague lent me when I was looking for something to read. It kick-started a love affair with her writing that proved a lot more enduring than the one I was conducting with my Scotsman, and to this day it remains my favourite of all her wonderful novels.

In 1991 I resigned from teaching for the second time (cue more parental dismay), put a portfolio together and flew to London. For the following eleven months I worked by day as the world’s worst personal assistant in a Japanese Trading Company (poor Mr Koiwai) and wrote begging letters in my spare time to ad agencies. Eventually a sales promotions agency took pity on me and offered to pay me peanuts in return for a copywriter’s desk in their creative department. I wrote ads for Danone, Berol, Uncle Ben’s and Mars (we went on a tour of the factory in Slough and saw naked Maltezers on the assembly line). I shared a house in Hounslow with two Irish pals and wrote a collection of short stories for children in my spare time that every publisher in the UK rejected very politely.

The book I will forever associate with this period is Little Dorrit. As long as I was going to live in London, I had decided that nothing but Dickens would do to settle me in. I read Little Dorrit on the tube every morning, and it made me laugh and cry in roughly equal measure. I’d become so wrapped up in the story that it’s a miracle I got off at the right stop: I think I was on auto-pilot. When the train would pull in at Piccadilly Circus I’d be completely disoriented.

In September 2001 I took yet another plunge (parents by now content with resigned shrugs) and boarded a plane that was going to America. I’d had this daft notion brewing in my head for a while – since London, probably – that I should try writing a proper adult novel, and one of my brothers just happened to live in San Francisco. I arrived three days before four more planes took off, two from Boston, one from Washington and one from New Jersey, and . . . well, you know the rest. During the ten months I lived in the US I took up yoga, dabbled in Buddhism and wrote my first novel.  

Before I left Ireland for my transatlantic adventure, a friend gave me a parting gift of Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Big Country. I guffawed my way across the ocean – he was the perfect read at the perfect time – and when I landed I trawled the bookstores of San Francisco and hunted down his others, and they didn’t disappoint.

I could go on – The Shipping News calls to mind a certain writer’s retreat in Newfoundland; The Remains of the Day will forever take me back to France, and the tiny village with no shop where I read it; The Road I associate with my bedroom in a converted olive mill in Spain, where on one memorable morning I killed a scorpion with a shoe; Saturday belongs in a town in Poland where the only English speakers I could find were the staff in the tourist office.

So many countries, so many memories – and at the heart of all my travels, one constant. Thank goodness for books: in a place where nothing else is familiar they’re the pals you never have to leave at home.

Roisin Meaney's new book, Something In Common, is published in April 2013.