I recently went for two books I adored when I was younger to see how they stood up now. I’m always amazed. the Narnia books, for example, which I thought were as wide as a whole world, are short, with much less description than you can see in those vast snowy vistas in your head. Anne of Green Gables is not, in fact, a hilarious comedy about a girl getting into scrapes as I firmly believed at 9, but a completely heartbreaking story about unusual families feeling their way to love, and the real sniveller is not Matthew dying (though that never gets any easier), but Marilla, so slow to take to Anne with an ‘e’, but so adoring when she finally does.

Anyway, the first was Little Lord Fauntelroy, as I remembered loving it and it’s what my mum calls Wallace, from when he had a full head of glorious golden curls as a toddler (now a thick mop of unruly brown). This story, of an angelic poor American child taming a crusty English Earl was a huge hit in its day. Now it might be seen as the absolute height of emetic high Victorianism and their cult of the perfect innocent child. Fauntelroy is SO perfect, So loveable, SO amazingly well-behaved at all times that it staggers the senses and completely belies any real children in existence. It’s fallen out of fashion recently, and it’s very easy to see why; I don’t think I’ll be reading it to Wallace- to whom, anyway, I am reading something I always dreamt of being able to do as a parent. I think you can probably guess it from this line alone: Wallace sat completely still on the bed, eyes wide, not even daring to breathe, as I read, very quietly,

“Nobody ever goes in… and nobody ever comes out.”

“But… but WHY?” said Charlie Bucket and Wallace, simultaneously.

“That will have to wait till tomorrow” said I and Mrs Bucket simultaneously. Dahl really was, in the end, the best.

And the second I shall do tomorrow.

Gosh Nicci Gerrard is a wonderful writer. She used to write for the Observer, and her pieces were always like tiny jewels, they seemed wasted on something as ephemeral as a newspaper. Then she joined up with her husband, Sean French- who once wrote a novel on his own, something with monkeys in. It was in the drawer in the old spare room in the house I grew up in on the sea. I can’t remember a thing about the novel except that I liked it, and monkeys were involved- but I remember the feel of the paper that lined the drawer, and the faded floral sprig wallpaper that was dated than, but in vogue again these days. Anyway, Nicci and Sean joined forces and called themselves Nicci French, to write a series of crime novels which are pretty good, like Minette Walters, but I just came across a solo novel by Gerrard called Solace which I thought was new but turns out to be about five years old.

Anyway, it was splendid, about the ending of a marriage; beautifully written, dreamy, accurate and painful. It pulls a mean trick about 4/5ths of the way through which is unnecessary and should have been taken out; the quotidian truths the novel contains are diminished by a tragedy which feels out of place and a little unfair, but the rest of it is absolutely great. It went well with my new Lisa Jewell proof, After the Party, which is about a bad year in a marriage and is similarly elegaic, delicate and true with feelings. One can’t help but feel if men were writing these extraordinary contemporary accounts of everyday lives, people would be throwing them ticker tape parades. Tant pis!

Spring did spring here in France, but is beating a temporary retreat today. Michael-Francis and Delphie are having a snooze and Wallace is wearing his father’s motorcycle kit and hanging around the door saying ‘WHEN ARE THEY COMING? SOON??’. Waiting twenty minutes for your friends to turn up is quite a long time when you’re only JUST five.

One recommendation, one not:

YES: Race of A Lifetime, almost a follow up to Primary Colours, the fabulous, gossipy, fascinating story of Obama, Hillary, Palin, Edwards and McCain racing for the White House in 2008. It’s just incredible- as Obama himself said at one point, ‘this would be a fascinating story, if you didn’t have to live it’. Even makes you feel sorry for Palin, dumped into a world she didn’t understand and frantically missing her baby. It’s an absolute classic, and how fantastic that a story this good gets writers who can do it justice.

NO: I won’t put the title or the author’s name as it’s a horrible thing to google yourself and come across something unpleasant, to which one would say, don’t google yourself, to which one would also say, HA!

Anyway, if you loved Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, do not be tempted to pick up the recent sequel. If you didn’t or haven’t read it, I can’t even imagine how incomprehensible it would be to you. An utter disaster of a book.

It’s almost too scary to read about, people writing well on the experience of growing older. I suppose it’s nice to know they’re still writing. Writing is one of those jobs were you don’t necessarily peak when you’re younger, like physics or football. Mary Wesley, who wrote the brilliant Camomile Lawn, famously published her first novel at 71. Recently, co-incidentally, I read two books in a week with the subject.

Olive Kitteredge by Elizabeth Strout I bought on a whim (I do this a lot- you know what it’s like when you’re in a bookshop or browsing Amazon. You walk in thinking, wow, look, they have TONS and TONS of books, how amazing, then you realise that you have either read everything, or it’s absolute pish, or you just don’t like the sound of it (’a man, confronting his own mentality and mental state, begins a dangerous affair’… you know the type of thing), and I don’t even go near the fantasy section (yes yes, calm down Terry Goodwind fans). So often I find myself so desperate for reading material I buy stuff almost at random. I did that with this book, but it is actually wonderful and, it turns out, won the Pulitzer last year. It’s a collection of short stories linking this woman, Olive, who gradually realises certain things about herself, late in life. But it’s more the absolutely accurate description of emotions it contains, and the fully 3D recognisable people who make an impact. I loved it. But it did make me simply not want to get old.

The Old Boy’s Network by John Rae, shouldn’t work- it is very very short diary entries over thirty years that he spent as a headmaster at Westminster, the famous public school. Yet it gives wonderful snapshots of life at the very top of the ladder; naughty boys, unhappy boys, startlingly clever boys; and weaves a wonderful picture of the interconnectedness of the British elite. I suspect twenty years ago it would have made me furious. As a historical document of time passing though- with what I always romanticise as the master’s dilemma; the teacher always gets older, the pupils never do-though, it is entirely fascinating.

And incidentally two recommended books if you really are interested in the end bits: Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Ampthill, and The Last Cigarette by Simon Gray. We all know that, if we are terribly lucky, old age is coming; it’s nice to think too that there is some wit and humour and understanding there too.

On the other foot completely, I am ADORING Race of a Lifetime, the story of how Obama won the White House in 08. It is full of passion and clever ruthlessness; change and youth and hope and vigour, and the writing is, thrillingly, up to the amazing story.