Chrissie Wellington competing at the 2008 Frankfurt Ironman

Chrissie Wellington, British Triathlete and four time World Ironman Champion (2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011), was born 18th February 1977 and grew up in rural Norfolk, attending Downham Market High School and Sixth Form. In later years, Chrissie attended the University of Birmingham, where she studied Geography and became a member of several clubs and teams, particularly Captaining the University Swimming Team. After University, Chrissie initially intended to train as a lawyer, but decided to travel to Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Asia before embarking on her career.  After two years, she’d changed her mind and returned to the UK to begin an MA at the University of Manchester. Chrissie’s first marathon was the London Marathon that took place in April 2002, which gave her a taste of the buzz running could bring, and the feeling of achievement a race brought. Whilst working for the UK government, Chrissie continued to enjoy running, even joining a running group, and in 2004 was encouraged by a friend to attempt a triathlon. In September of the same year, Chrissie began to work for the Nepalese development NGO, Rural Reconstruction Nepal in the capital of Nepal – Kathmandu. It was here that she developed a love for mountain biking and also often enjoyed running on the many (hilly) trails in the Kathmandu Valley. In the years that followed Chrissie continued to take part in triathlons across the country, winning several and eventually winning the World Amateur title in the ITU World Age Group (Amateur) Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was at this time she made the decision to become a professional athlete and promptly joined a newly formed triathlon team (TeamTBB) at their training camp in Thailand. Since making this decision Chrissie has participated in dozens of events across the globe, and has won four World Ironman competitions. On 23^rd February 2012, Chrissie’s book, A Life Without Limits – “the amazing life story of Britain’s world conquering triathlete”, was released.

Q: You have said that when you were young you “was a member of most school sports teams, although I focused more on my studies than I did on reaching my full potential on the pitch”. Obviously you were into sport when you were younger, but what did you imagine yourself being one day? And what do you think your younger self would have thought of you now being a professional athlete?

Chrissie Wellington

My younger self would have laughed had you said I would have become a professional athlete! As my autobiography ‘A Life Without Limits’ will show, I have taken a rather unique path to professional sport. I didn’t grow up like many other triathletes watching triathlon on television and wanting to qualify for the World Championships in Hawaii. Never in a million years did I imagine that I would become a professional sports person! At a very young age my dream was to become a tractor driver, but these ambitions were quashed by the fact that I am a liability behind the wheel, and after that I wanted to be a teacher, a vet, and then later a lawyer and as I said, after an epiphany when travelling I realized my passion lay in international development, and made that my career.

I was always a sporty kid, but doing well academically was the most important thing to me. I swam competitively for a local swim team and played hockey and netball at school – but yes, like you said, I never excelled and was always more interested in the social side.  I went to university at 18, then travelled the world for 2 years. Travelling opened my eyes to the many problems that exist, but also the opportunity that there is for positive change. I knew then that I wanted to work in international development. I did an MA and got a job working for the UK Government on international environment and development policy for 3 years.

While I was doing my MA I decided to take up running – starting with 20mins until I could run about 90minutes. I decided to do the London Marathon in 2002, and ran 3.08. After that I joined a running club in London and began to train more seriously, and in 2003 I also started swimming again. A friend persuaded me to do a few triathlons in 2004 – all on an old, borrowed bike and a very big wetsuit that didn’t fit me!  I really enjoyed it – but I also wanted to work overseas and so in September that year I left the UK to work in Nepal for 16 months. Here I bought a mountain bike and cycled every single day before work. It was an amazing opportunity to explore the countryside, meet people and keep fit. I didn’t do any structured training – just grinding up and down the hills was enough to make me super strong!

I returned to the UK in 2006, and entered a few triathlons as an amateur – managing to amaze myself by qualifying for the World Triathlon Championships in Lausanne. I got a coach, trained really hard for 10 weeks and somehow managed to win the world amateur title. I seriously couldn’t believe what I had achieved!  Then I had to decide whether or not to take the risk, give up my job and have a go at professional triathlon. I never want to look back and think ‘what if’.  So, in February 2007 I gave up my job and became a professional triathlete – but was only thinking of doing short course, Olympic distance – not Ironman. I didn’t actually know anything about Ironman, other than that I thought you had to be crazy to do it! It was only when my coach suggested that I do Ironman Korea in august 2007, and I won it and managed to qualify for the World Championships six weeks later in Hawaii. Much to my surprise I won that race, and was crowned World Ironman Champion in my very first year as a pro!

I guess my message here would be that we all have talents, some we tap into and others may lay dormant unless we have the courage to take a step into the unknown, try something new, without fear or the imposition of preconceived limits on ourselves. You only get one chance at life and the most important thing is for me to know that I have given it everything and been the best that I can be. To me the biggest failure of all is not to try. I didn’t know where that philosophy would take me in terms of triathlon, but unless I gave it a shot at going pro I would never really know.

Q: Your book, A Life without Limits, has just been released. What made you decide to write this, and share your experiences with the world?

A Life Without Limits

The autobiography truly has been a labour of love, and I have invested so much time and energy into this project over the past few years.  My motives for wanting to publically recount my life story in print are varied. Selfishly, I craved the intellectual and emotional challenge, and fulfilment, that comes from cathartic self-reflection. I also want to use it as a means to thank all those who have played a part in my life, both before and during my career in professional sport.

I wanted to share some practical tips for the triathletes out there, but more important are the ‘life’ lessons and philosophies that transcend sport, and are applicable to anyone – whether or not they are a pro athlete or a coach potato. These come from all areas of my life: my childhood, academia, whilst travelling, during my career as a civil servant, in Nepal and also through sport.  Through my words I want to encourage people, young and old, to take up sport, to travel, to pursue their dreams. I want to inspire people to take a chance, to attempt defy what they deem impossible and to be willing to look fear and adversity in the face and truly live their life without any preconceived limits. The book is one such the vehicle for doing this.

But effectively conveying these messages meant ‘humanizing’ myself. I am sometimes held up as this robotic, infallible ‘freak of nature’, but of course I am no such thing. In order for the reader to be able to relate and identify with me I had to expose the good, the bad and the ugly. I wanted to reveal my strengths, my weaknesses, my fears, my concerns, my likes and dislikes, my passions, my true nature. There are things in the book that people may not have known, for example my battles with eating and body image – but it is only by sharing some of these stories, that I can break down the façade, and really impact  – and hopefully inspire – the reader.

In writing a book that transcended triathlon I wanted to try and take the sport out of the minority, and into the psyche of the majority. I wanted to showcase our sport to those that may have never heard of ironman, and show that it truly is accessible to the masses.  A lofty ambition perhaps, but the more exposure I can get of book, and of triathlon, in the mainstream media the closer I get to making this pipe dream that a reality. And that’s why I want to invest as much time in promoting the book as I did in creating it. I hope World of Books customers enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Q: You announced back in January that this year you are having a break from Ironman. What other hobbies and commitments will you be pursuing instead?

You know, I never thought I would say this, but I really am enjoying having a break from full time ironman training and racing. Making the decision to have a sabbatical was reminiscent of the time in 2006 when I was deliberating whether or not to embark on an unknown path as a pro triathlete. Although having such choices is a blessing making these decisions is never easy: but now, as then, I simply try to follow my gut instinct and do what I feel is right deep in my heart. But yes, it was a HUGE decision, and one that I deliberated long and hard over.

I have devoted the whole of the last 5 years to being the best athlete I can be. No short cuts, no stone left unturned. And I have loved every minute of it. I feel so incredibly fortunate and grateful to have found a sport that I love; to have had the chance to actually make that passion my career; to have continually defied what I thought was possible; to have made so many great friends; to have travelled the world, and of course to have developed a platform on which I can now build.

But I believe that racing cannot always be the axis around which my life revolves. It should not be an end in itself – never the be all and end all of my life. Never defining me. It is just one branch on a tree that I hope is as big, rich and varied as I can possibly make it. I want to inject some variety back into my life, some balance, and some spontaneity. I want to be freer to explore and seize other opportunities.  I have also realised that I need to take the time to truly truly cherish what I have achieved in this sport and actually appreciate ‘what is’. So yes, I am doing all these things and more, and actually I am busier than ever – just in a different way than before!

I don’t like to do things by halves, so although I wont be racing ironman events this year I hope that doing other sporting and non sporting related activities will give me a huge amount of joy and gratification – albeit slightly different from crossing the finish line. Some of those goals may not be as grandiose as winning Kona, but are personally important to me, such as spending more time with family and friends, reading more widely, going to concerts etc. I want to work more closely with my chosen charities, to attend different races around the world, to work with my sponsors, to be able to attend the Olympics (although not to compete!), to promote my autobiography, do some public and corporate speaking engagements and to try and inspire as many people as possible. Yes, I could do this whilst training and racing full time, but not to the extent and with the energy and passion that I feel is necessary.

My desire to work a lot more actively with all of my chosen charities was a key reason for my decision to step back from full time training and racing for a little while. I have an amazing opportunity to use my platform to raise funds and awareness for causes that are important to me, and simply felt that I couldn’t do as much as I wanted to do whilst also trying to be the best athlete I could be.  The charitable work will focus on those that I am already actively supporting, such as Janes Appeal, the Blazeman Foundation for ALS, Girls Education Nepal and Challenged Athletes Foundation and well as helping to grow GOTRIbal.

I have organised specific events, such as ‘Runs with Chrissie’ (www.runwithchrissie.com) in the UK where people pay to run 5km with me, do a training session, have dinner and then attend a Q&A and presentation. All the money goes to Jane’s Appeal and we have raised over £10,000 already through two events. I have also done some clinics and events in aid of the Challenged Athletes Foundation. I am also fortunate to be able to use other projects (such as the recently launched motivation and training downloads I made with Audiofuel) as a vehicle to support worthwhile causes.

My next sporting Challenge will be in April and will a big one! I will run the Paris Marathon, cycle 1000km and then run London Marathon, all in the space of a week!!!!  My aim is to help pace others around, and so I wont be trying to so a personal best time in the marathon. Its all about teamwork, and helping others to also complete this amazing Challenge in aid of Janes Appeal. But even if I don’t want to actually race fast I still need to start training!

Q: When speaking about your past trainer Frank Horwill who passed away on 1^st January this year, you remember one of his expressions being “never utter the words ‘I can’t’. Only ‘I will try’”. How often have you recalled these words throughout your career? How long did it take you to fully train mentally as well as physically for rigorous races such as Ironman?

Frank J. Horwill MBE (19 June 1927 – 1 January 2012)

Frank was my first proper running coach. His body may have departed, but his legacy will forever live on in my memory, and in the thousands of other’s whose lives he so selflessly, generously and inspirationally touched. Those words are Frank in a nutshell. Selfless, generous and inspirational. And to that I would add intelligent, witty, non-conformist, loyal, passionate, energetic, and side splittingly funny. He was a man of many talents, some of which I am ashamed to say, I have only truly reflected on, and appreciated, since his passing.

I first met Frank in 2002. As a member of Serpentine running club I used to go down to Battersea track, in London, for the Thursday evening training session, where Frank also used to coach a group of athletes – the Horwill Harriers. He welcomed all – regardless of ability or background – his only criteria being that an athlete never uttered the word I cant. ‘Only ‘I will try’. I learnt so much from him, and try to always live by that motto.

It was Frank who first made clear to me that you race with your mind as well as your body. When I raced at the World Ironman Championships at Kona last year, having had a bad bike crash two weeks before, I won the race, not on physical prowess, but on grit, will power, determination and mental strength. I hope I showed through my performance there that – as Frank always said – sporting success rests, in part, about having the mental fortitude necessary to overcome our fears, hurt, and discomfort. It sounds simple but so easy to forget. If we let our head drop, our heart drops with it. Keep your head, and your body is capable of amazing feats. To plunder the words of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar  – “Don’t ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.”

The message: all the physical strength in the world won’t help you if your mind is not prepared. This is part of training – the part that people don’t put in their log books; the part that all the monitors, gizmos and gadgets in the world can’t influence. And, I believe that whilst some of us are born with that mental strength, it can also be learned and that there are strategies one can use to ‘train the brain’. You just need to put the time and energy into doing so. This can include visualisation, positive self talk, having positive mental images, using music, testing yourself in training so that you know you can endure discomfort, having a mantra, setting clear goals, and training/racing for a cause that is bigger than yourself, for example a charity or a special person in your life, like Frank.

Q: At the beginning of this year you teamed up with AudioFuel and Universal Music and created ‘Tri Harder’, a set of motivational CDs for athletes across the globe, whether they are beginners or semi-pro. The CDs range from a motivational warm-up session, ‘Lace Up’, to ‘Ride Harder’ – a guide to indoor cycling. What is your key bit of advice that spans across all these CDs?

This was a great opportunity to work with two companies, whose passion is to motivate people through music. We invested a lot of time and energy in creating the Tri Harder product, and I am so incredibly proud of what we have achieved. If I was to pinpoint the key message(s) it would be to test your limits, push the boundaries of what you think you can achieve, never be scared to try, and most of all to enjoy the amazing sporting journey.

Q: From perusing your website (check out http://www.chrissiewellington.org/) we were delighted to learn that your favourite books are ‘Pillars of the Earth’ by Ken Follett and ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (favourites at World of Books too!) Why would you say that these two books have had an impact on you?

One of Chrissie's Favourite Books

Yes, two of my favourite books are ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. The first is an amazingly colourful, thought provoking, gripping masterpiece of a novel that manages to weave together issues of colonialism, oppression, ethnicity, civil war, love, race, family bonds, loyalty and much more – I couldn’t put it down! Pillars of the Earth was given to me by one of my best friends while I was living in Nepal. I never expected to be captivated by a historical saga about medieval cathedrals. But it’s an epic in every sense: the landscapes, architecture, characters and dialogue truly come to life in your hands.

Q: What are your three biggest pet peeves?

Apathy, arrogance and chaffing.

Q: “Sport has phenomenal, far-reaching amazing power. It is a vehicle to do great things. For me, winning races is not about the glory, it’s not about the money, it’s not about the times. The key is the manner in which I try and win, the lessons I learn and the message I hope I convey”. What “great things” do you think sport is currently making possible and in the future?

You know, champions come and go, but to me the real judge of my personal success will be whether I actually do something positive with the opportunities I have been given. I try never to take for granted the opportunities I have to encourage others, to increase participation in triathlon and other sports and to generate more interest and support amongst the media and businesses, in the UK and around the world.  That’s what motivates me  – and, for me, that’s the beauty of sport. It is a vehicle to achieve so much more.

Sport plays a hugely important role at the individual, community, national and global levels. For the individual, sport enhances one’s personal abilities and skills, general health and well-being and is a route to self-discovery and empowerment. On the national level sport and physical education contribute to economic and social growth, improve public health, break down artificial barriers in society, and unite fractioned communities. At a time when many countries are becoming increasingly characterised by sedentary lifestyles, chronic ill health and endemic obesity, as well as wider social and economic problems, such as unemployment, social unrest and prejudice sport is one way of helping to tackle these issues.

Through my work with the Challenged Athletes Foundation I have seen first hand what sport can bring to physically challenged people, enabling both their physical and mental growth, and – like a snowball – one athlete inspires another to defy what others might think is impossible.

I feel really strongly that everyone, young and old, needs good role models – people they can look to for inspiration. Sports people can be such role models, and can be a force for incredible good: helping to encourage and inspire people to undertake physical activity, dream big, reach for the stars and empower themselves, and those around them.

Q: And the last question, World of Books is dedicated to providing good-quality second-hand books to the public. In a world with an ever-growing digital media base, and increasing environmental concerns, do you believe in the importance of giving each physical book the chance of a new home?

Of course, having worked in international environment and development policy I have seen first hand the need for sustainable practices all the way from the global to the local level. World of Books provides a great service – there is nothing like turning the page of a great book, especially if you know that it is saving and conserving the world’s resources and also giving back to charitable causes too. It’s a big win win win in my book (no pun intended!).

]]> http://blog.worldofbooks.com/2012/04/11/chrissie-wellington-interview/feed/ 0 worldofbooksltd Chrissie Wellington competing at the 2008 Frankfurt Ironman Chrissie Wellington A Life Without Limits Frank J. Horwill MBE (19 June 1927 – 1 January 2012) One of Chrissie's Favourite Books http://blog.worldofbooks.com/2012/04/05/patrick-bishop-interview/ http://blog.worldofbooks.com/2012/04/05/patrick-bishop-interview/#comments Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:52:03 +0000 worldofbooksltd http://blog.worldofbooks.com/?p=541 ]]>

Patrick Bishop

Patrick Bishop was born in London and went to Wimbledon College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Before joining the Telegraph he worked on the Evening Standard, the Observer and the Sunday Times and in television as a reporter on Channel Four News. Alongside John Witherow, Patrick wrote a history of the Falkands War based on their own experiences, later also writing in partnership with Eamon Mallie about the Provisional IRA, which was praised as the first authoritative account of the modern IRA. Emerging in the last decade as one of Britain’s best-regarded military historians, his books Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys, helped cast a new light on the men who flew in the Battle of Britain and the Strategic Air Campaign. As well writing about past wars, Patrick has also led the field in contemporary accounts of the experiences of British troops fighting in southern Afghanistan. His book, 3 Para, told the story of the initial break-in battle in Helmand in 2006 and won the British Army Military Book of the Year Award. He joined the Paras on their return to southern Afghanistan in 2008 and produced a sequel, Ground Truth. Patrick has written two fictional novels, A Good War (2008) and Follow Me Home, which was described as “the first great novel of the Afghan war”. Patrick now lives in London with his partner and daughter.

Hi Patrick,

Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed by us today, your books detail eye-opening accounts of warfare, the horrors of it, but also the comradery and honour that are shown when normal people are pushed to their limits. We know our customers will be really interested in what you’ve got to say.

Q: OK, so we’ll start with an easy one Patrick! You’ve obviously seen a lot of the world, but what top three things would be on your bucket list?

A: Paint a wonderful portrait of my wife Henrietta and daughter Honor

   Catch a 20lb salmon

   Sing the latino classic Cucurucucu Paloma in duet with my friend Alix Wiseman

Q: Your writing stems from first-hand knowledge of warfare that you have gained during a long career as a foreign correspondent. We know that you have been involved with almost all of the deployments of the British Army for the past thirty years, from the Falklands to Afghanistan. Do you feel afraid for yourself before going abroad? And what drives you to keep going back with these soldiers?

A: Well in fact I’ve packed it in now. I’m  too old and not nimble enough. But when I did do it, it was because I enjoyed it. War is hell but it is also exciting and makes you appreciate the fact that you are alive. That is why so many young men practice it. As to feeling frightened, everyon experiences fear to a greater or lesser extent but the body or brain does not allow you to stay terrified for protracted periods. The important thing is to try and control your fear when it surges up by telling yourself that it will pass. 

Q: Your latest book Target Tirpitz: X-Craft, Agents and Dambusters – ‘The Epic Quest To Destroy Hitler’s Mightiest Warship’ was released on 2^nd February 2012. Target Tirpitz was reputed to have been Hitler’s greatest weapon – an unsinkable battleship, something that the Allies wanted to destroy at all cost. As a result, there were more than thirty daring operations launched against the 52,000 ton monster. Although Royal Navy midget submarines carried out an attack, no permanent damage was done and the Fleet Air Arm was forced to launch full scale attacks through the summer of 1944 to try and finish her off. It was not until November 1944 that a daring operation by RAF Lancaster Bombers finally destroyed Hitler’s last battleship. How much research goes into a book such as this? And how difficult is it to streamline your information?

A: Researching a book like Target Tirpitz is a very big undertaking because the story covers operations by the Navy, the Fleet Air Arm, the RAF, the Army the German Navy and the Norwegian resistance. This means you have to have a reasonable knowledge of the functioning and organisation of all these elements before you begin delving into actual events. The narrative is really a succession of episodes, each of which could almost be books in themselves. So this was probably the most labour-intensive project I have tackled to date. Having said that, the research is the fun part. I love sitting in libraries and  and the Public Record Office in Kew, sifting through mountains of minutes and memoranda, typed on flimsy paper by the army of secretaries who were essential to the bureaucratic war effort. Seeing a significant note scrawled in pencil in the margin by one of the players can have an electric effect, making you feel you are directly connected to history.

The process of streamlining all this is akin to being a sculptor. You have a great marble-like block of information and from it you have to hew something is pleasing and true.

Q: What book is currently on your night-stand?

On Patrick's Nightstand

A: Christie Campbell’s book on the V Weapon’s Target London, and an omnibus edition of six Maigret novels by Georges Simenon.

Q: How different do you find writing fiction compared with your journalism or non-fictional accounts?

A: I find fiction harder because you only have your own imagination to work from and if it is no good it is entirely your fault.

Q: What would your three pieces of advice be for any aspiring journalists and writers?

A:  I have just one.  Look at what is in front of you and listen to what you are told. This would seem glaringly obvious but a depressingly large number of writers and journalists seem to think that they, and not their subjects are the story.

Q: What do you wish you could have done more of and what do you know you should have done less of?

A: Regrets are pointless. One simply has to resolve to do better.

Q: Your novel, Follow Me Home, has been described as “One of the most honest and evocative stories to come out of the war in Afghanistan” (Oxford Today), and “Impressively authentic” (Evening Standard). Obviously you know your subject so well because often you have experienced or born witness to similar things first-hand. How much of yourself, or your own memories do you put into the books? And does this make them emotional to write at times?

A: There’s a lot of what I have experienced in the books and some – but only some – of the characters have a foundation in people that I have met. Emotion doesn’t really come into it. Writing is work like any other and the harder you try the better it gets.

Q: When you were younger what did you want to be?

A: A priest. I still do sometimes.

Q: And lastly, World of Books is dedicated to providing good-quality second-hand books to the public. In a world with an ever-growing digital media base, and increasing environmental concerns, do you believe in the importance of giving each physical book the chance of a new home?

A: I hate the idea of books going into landfill sites and thoroughly applaud your efforts to find them a new home. Good luck to you all and keep up the good work.

Thanks for the interview Patrick, check out his books for sale here, and don’t forget to visit Patrick’s own website.

Keith Lowe (photo by Liza Messing)

Hi Keith,

Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. Your new book sounds really interesting – we may all have studied the Second World War at school, but the aftermath, and the suffering that continued across Europe is a lesser known topic, but an important part of our history and who we have become nonetheless. We’re pleased to be able to chat to the author, it’s a real pleasure.

Q: Right, so we’ll start with a simple one, when did you first begin to write?

I’ve enjoyed writing ever since I can remember. I wrote my first ‘book’ when I was five years old – I still have it – a tense and brilliant thriller called ‘Dracula in Monsterland’. For some reason this masterpiece has yet to find a publisher. I first set my heart on a career in writing when I was sixteen, and haven’t really taken my eyes off it since. I studied literature at university, and then went into publishing because I wanted to understand the industry. Along the way I have acquired a deep love of history, which is what I write about now.

Q: What are your three biggest pet peeves?

Parking tickets, people who don’t know how to listen, telly programmes that cut from one scene to another every half a second in order to try and make a boring subject appear interesting.

New Free Chocolate Sex

Q: Your book, ‘New Free Chocolate Sex’, tells the story of Matt and Sam, a young marketing director of a confectionary business, and a young woman who is working on a TV documentary which aims to highlight the exploitation of African people in producing chocolate for the Western world to gorge on. When they are trapped inside Matt’s chocolate factory for a weekend, they are forced to face their differences and become united in their attempts to escape. Although this book is essentially a simple story about “two people, and how they are changed by their experiences”, when speaking about your novel you have said, “throughout the book I use chocolate as a symbol not only of how the characters work, but also of how our world works, and there is a part of me that hopes that if my characters can learn to change, then we can all do so”. Since its release in 2005, do you believe national awareness of fairtrade chocolate has increased for the better?

Yes and no. There are a lot more fairtrade products out there – from coffee to bananas – and companies like Divine and Green & Blacks have been leading the way when it comes to chocolate. To a degree, the major chocolate companies have bowed to public pressure – but the pressure to keep costs low is far greater, and most still do the bare minimum for their suppliers and their workers. It’s fairly depressing, actually. We’re all so concerned for ourselves in the current economic climate that we regard it as a luxury to think of what life might be like for child labourers in Cote d’Ivoire.

Q: If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

The ability to say precisely the right thing, succinctly, without hesitation, in any situation. Not just in my writing, but in everyday life. I tend to, er, well, I don’t know… what was I saying again?

Q: How often do you experience writer’s block, and how do you go about tackling it?

When I was writing fiction I used to get writer’s block fairly frequently, and found the only way to get over it was to stop what I was doing and go out for a long walk. It’s not such a problem when writing history, because it’s less creative: the facts are there before you – you just have to know how to arrange and analyse them. If I get a block now it’s a sure sign that I haven’t done enough research.

Q: Your new book, ‘Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II’, is due out 5^th April 2012. This non-fictional work acknowledges the 35 million deaths that occurred throughout the Second World War, but it continues to tell the story of the ten years that followed, and how Europe continued to suffer, outlining “the warped morality and the insatiable urge for vengeance that were the legacy of the conflict”. How long did it take to research for this book? And how did you go about cutting down the information so it would fit onto a reasonable amount of pages?

It took five years to gather together the research for this book – and that still feels like the bare minimum.  I tried to cover themes that affected every country in Europe, so there was a good deal of research in foreign languages too, for which I needed plenty of help. I can struggle by in German, Italian and French, but I can’t even pretend to understand Polish, Serbo-Croat or Hungarian, so I had to employ half a dozen translators and call in lots of favours from bilingual friends and family. As you rightly say, honing down the huge amounts of information was one of my biggest challenges. It was a matter of deciding what the most important themes were, and trying give a feel for the rest without going off on any lengthy tangents. I wish I could claim that I managed all this on my own, but it would be a lie: fortunately I have a brilliant editor at Penguin who whipped me into shape.

Q: Obviously your writing style for your first two books varies greatly to your non-fiction work, what genre of writing do you prefer?

Fiction is incredibly liberating, because you can do virtually anything you want to. If you want your characters to have superpowers, they can. If you get bored of one of them, you can kill him off. But when you’re writing history books you can’t make anything up – apparently that’s quite frowned upon…! It’s a serious point, because the facts often get in the way of a good story, and there have been times when I really wished events had taken a slightly different turn, or a particular person had said something just a little more dramatic. Unfortunately real life doesn’t always arrange itself into a nice story structure.

On the other hand, the joy of writing non-fiction is that you don’t have to make anything up at all: the story is all ready for you, and all you have to do is discover it. That can be really exciting. There’s nothing like discovering a new document in an archive – something that has been handled by Churchill, or De Gaulle, and which has only been touched by a handful of people since. Writing history also gives you a perfect excuse to interview all kinds of people you would never otherwise get the chance to meet. That’s not something I ever had when I was writing fiction – instead I spent a lot of time going slightly mad in a room on my own.

Q: Who is your hero?

I have lots of heroes. My mother has to be top of the list – how she managed to raise five kids and hold down a job at the same time baffles me. Thinking historically, I have always been in awe of those who did the right thing even when it was difficult: people like Captain Oates, or Hans and Sophie Scholl. Or people with real vision, like George Kennan or Jean Monnet. I could go on…

Q: What advice would you give as an editor for authors hoping to get work published?

I’ve been out with sales reps when they’re selling books to bookshops, and it’s terrifying. They have to summarise the book in just one sentence, and then move on to the next. Put yourself in their shoes – summarise your own idea in a single sentence, and if it sounds boring then you know what sort of reception it will get from a publishers’ sales team.

Once you’ve done that, write a decent, lengthier proposal, with a gripping first paragraph and a handful of reasons why it is unlike any of the other million books out there. Then edit it. Then edit it again. And again. And then get lots of people to read it and give you their sincere opinions – and be prepared to accept criticism.

If it’s fiction, make sure the synopsis is short and punchy, and include the first three chapters. If it’s non-fiction, concentrate on showing that you know your subject backwards, and that you are the best person to write the book. And finally, no matter who you are, get yourself a good agent!

Q: And lastly, the one we ask everyone! World of Books is dedicated to providing good-quality second-hand books to the public. In a world with an ever-growing digital media base, and increasing environmental concerns, do you believe in the importance of giving each physical book the chance of a new home?

Absolutely. I could not do what I do without second hand books. My office is filled with fantastic books that have been allowed to go out of print – they are what underpins any original research I might have done. Almost none of them are available as e-books, and I don’t think I’d download them even if they were. Flicking through the pages of a real, physical book, being able to scribble notes in the margin, leaping backwards and forwards to the notes or the index, and smelling the dust and the age of the pages – no digital media can recreate that experience.

 Thanks for chatting with us Keith, learn more about Keith over at the Simon and Schuster website here, or follow him on Twitter. Don’t forget to check out the World of Books site for loads of cheap books.

Matthew Lynn

Hi Matt,

Many thanks for agreeing to an interview with us today, we love the Death Force series here at World of Books; they never fail to have us on the edge of our seats!

Q: So, we’ll start with an easy one, when you were younger, what career did you imagine yourself having?

A footballer, like most small boys. I never particularly saw myself as a writer. It was only after leaving university and working as a journalist that I started thinking about writing novels, and even then it took me a few goes before I got it right.

Q: In the past you have ghost-written dozens of military thrillers. What made you step back and begin writing under your own name?

Well, that’s easy – the money and the fame! Ghost writing was a great experience because it gives you a lot of experience, and allows you to try out different ideas and styles. And you get well-paid. But after a while it gets frustrating seeing someone else get the credit for what is after all your work.

Q: As we’ve already mentioned above, your new book, Ice Force, is due out 29^th March. The book continues the story of a group of mercenaries that were first introduced in ‘Death Force’. In ‘Death Force’ we read about their fights and trials in Helmand, Afghanistan, in ‘Fire Force’ the team is thrown into the unforgiving hands of Africa, and in ‘Shadow Force’ they fight pirates in Somalia. In this most recent instalment the team are forced into “a deadly battle for survival in the frozen wastelands of the Arctic”, where they are tasked with locating a murdered millionaire’s blackbox in the ruins of his targeted plane. This newest book sounds just as exciting as the previous three Matt, for those avid fans of yours out there, what can they expect? And are there any surprises in store?

It is a different kind of story, mainly because the Arctic is such an extreme environment. It is as much a survival story as anything else. They are battling the elements, and trying to stay alive. Also, the plot is slightly different. It is much more of a mystery. The unit has to find a plane that came down near the North Pole – but then find out why it came down.

Q: As we mentioned in the previous question, location is obviously an important factor when writing each new

Ice Force Cover

book – Afghanistan is brutal and “the most fascinating combat theatre in the world today”, as we so often hear on the news Africa is full of corrupt regimes and natural resources making it a melting pot for “the dogs of war”, and Somalia remains “a gruesome and failed country”, where the poverty of the people makes piracy a way of life. In ‘Ice Force’ the team touch down in the Arctic. This novel contrasts to the ones before because it sets the mercenaries in a place where there is not already an ongoing battle, and there has not already been wars waged. Why did you choose to do this?

I’ve always enjoyed Arctic thrillers. It is a fascinating place to set a story – it is the closest thing you can do to taking your characters to a different planet without straying into sci-fi. Also, it is really contemporary. There is a huge geo-political battle going on for the oil under the Arctic, and that seemed a good subject for a thriller.

Q: When talking about researching for your books you said you “spent a lot of time interviewing soldiers who had fought in the PMCs”. What real-life stories have inspired you or stayed with you?

Lots of them. By talking to soldiers and mercenaries you collect lots of information. I think what you learn most from the mercenaries is how exposed they are. They are put in very dangerous situations. But they don’t have any of the back-up of regular soldiers.

Q: We know that you have been inspired in your writing by Sven Hassel, who wrote a series of books based on his time in the German Army on the Eastern Front. Obviously military history is a source of great interest to you Matt, why is this? And have you always held this fascination?

War is great drama – it is full of human interest, and conflicts and stories. It is the perfect arena to set stories in. And although the technology changes slightly, the basics of warfare don’t change very much, so historical books are a great source even when you are writing more modern stuff.

Q: You’ve written a few e-books, including ‘BlackOps’ and ‘Lethal Force’ (check out Matt’s Site for more details). It’s got to be asked Matt! Kindle or real books?

That’s a loaded question! E-books are real books. A book, after all, is a collection of words and ideas, not a particular physical object. I love printed books of course, but right now I mostly read on my Kindle. And e-books are opening up all kinds of new possibilities for writers. So in general I think e-books are a great thing for writers.

Q: In the appendix of each of your novels there is a detailed list of all the weapons used throughout the book. How long does it take to research all these?

It is part of the research process of the whole book. I like to include lots of kit, and I need to have a rough idea of how it works to create the story. I try to include some old weapons and some brand new ones. And the appendix is there for readers who want to know a bit more about each weapon.

Q: Of your work people have been known to say statements such as “you can taste the dust and smell the blood” (and World of Books heartily agrees!) If this is the case for a reader of your stories, how real do they become in your mind whilst writing them? And how easy are they to shake off?

The stories are very real. I transport myself to the place in my mind. That is the only way to make it realistic. And of course you find yourself becoming very bound up in the book you are writing – though actually, it is the characters that are harder to shake off than the place.

Q: And the final one we ask everyone! World of Books is dedicated to providing good-quality second-hand books to the public. In a world with an ever-growing digital media base, and increasing environmental concerns, do you believe in the importance of giving each physical book the chance of a new home?

Sure. As a writer, I think e-books are a preferable form of helping the environment, because of course we get paid for them. So I agree with the objective. But it would be better if the writers got paid something.

Thanks for the interview Matt, you can find a whole range of books by Matt at the World of Books.com website or check out Matt’s website here and don’t forget to follow him on Twitter.

Jill out in the field

Hi Jill,

Wow! Looking at all the places you’ve travelled to to report from, it puts our yearly trip to Cornwall to shame! Thank you for agreeing to talk to us today Jill, we appreciate how busy you must be.

Q: Your first novel, The Last Kestrel is set in Afghanistan, and your second book, Far From My Father’s House, is based in Pakistan. Obviously you have worked closely with the different communities within these two pieces of work. How much inspiration have you drawn from your own experiences in these war-torn countries? Are there parts of the stories that hit closer to home than we initially imagine? 

The Last Kestrel Cover

- The plots and characters in both books are fiction. I imagined and ordered events in the hope of creating a suspenseful, fast-paced read. But both novels are also inspired in a broad sense by some real life incidents and by the many people I’ve met in the course of my reporting in both war zones. I wanted in The Last Kestrel to give readers a very immediate sense of what the current conflict is actually like for civilians, especially women, as well as for British troops there. The physical details in both books – the landscape, wildlife, sights, smells and so on – and the depiction of Afghan/Pashtun culture are drawn of course from my own visits over the years and I hope they add authenticity. I am not a typical “war” correspondent – I’m more interested in society and civilians than in military strategy. While The Last Kestrel is set on the frontline, FFMFH (Far From My Father’s House) looks at the impact of war on a family which is forced to flee its home village and take refuge in a camp. Again, it draws on years of interviews with displaced families and reports from such camps – but the actual characters and their story is fiction.

Q: Do you prefer digital or physical books?

- I can definitely see the attraction of the Kindle but I haven’t bought one myself yet. I was brought up in a house which brimmed with books and, as an adult, I find it hard to imagine a home without over-filled shelves for browsing. There’s something very immediate and special about the physical presence of a book: the smell and texture of the printed page, even the sense of progress as the bookmark advances. It is a very sensual experience which I would hate to abandon altogether.

Q: We know that throughout your career you have entered into tense and potentially dangerous situations, often more dangerous as a woman in countries where women are not expected to speak their mind. We admire you for having worked with British troops in the Helmand Province, Afghanistan, and for even spending several days with armed Maoist rebels in an Indian jungle. Do you think about the danger you may face in these situations? What drives you to enter them head-on anyway?

- I have been in danger and had some close calls and I’ve been lucky. There have been times too when I’ve been in the middle of a volatile situation and thought “this time I’ve gone too far” and times when I’ve been afraid. Generally though I’ve entered hostile environments because there’s a story which I think it’s important to report – and that’s the main driver. I’m very conscious too that I have choices about how far to go and the means to get out when I need to. Civilians in conflict zones rarely have that luxury.

Q: Although you must have experienced an exceptional amount on your travels, they probably can’t be placed in the same class as holidays! What top three things are on your bucket-list?

- I have been really lucky and visited a range of places for work, many of them in crisis or conflict. In terms of personal travel:

I’ve visited Australia briefly but I’d love to have a long enough break to explore it properly. In an ideal world, that would be months rather than just weeks.

I’ve always wanted to drive coast to coast across the USA…or, to be more honest, for someone else to do most of the driving for me.

I’m not sure if this counts as a holiday but I’d dearly love to be able to travel freely in North Korea one day. It would be wonderful if that were possible in my lifetime. I’ve written a lot about the country over the years but unfettered access is still impossible, especially for journalists. I want to know how people are living, what they’ve experienced in their lifetimes and what they think about the rest of the world.

Q: What do you do to relax (when you have the time!)?

- There never seems to be enough time but I try to go home to West Yorkshire whenever I can to see family there for walks on the moors, drives in the Dales for lunch or cups of tea and quiet evenings watching films.

The Beautiful Yorkshire Dales

Q: What is the current book on your bedside table?

- Actually there’s a pile. I’m reading The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru at the moment. It’s set in pre-Independence India. It’s a period I’ve been researching for the last year or so and am writing about in my third novel. Next I’m hoping to start on a book which I’ve been saving up since Christmas: Blindness by Jose Saramago which several friends strongly recommended.

Q: What genre of writing do you prefer, fictional or reporting?

- They’re so different and satisfying in totally different ways. Reporting is all about accuracy and factual truth and being faithful to reality. It’s rational brain writing.

Fiction writing is about the creative imagination, especially in the first draft when the characters and narrative are first emerging. Writing fiction to the length of a novel is a more complex and long-term project than the average news report – a huge amount of work but very absorbing and fulfilling too.

Q: In 2010, your documentary ‘Dying to Give Birth’ was shortlisted for two national journalism awards (Amnesty International and the One World media awards) and won an Association of International Broadcasters award. The radio programme focused on maternal mortality in Pakistan and received a warm audience. Do you believe that documentaries such as these are a strong way of highlighting social issues across the world that are otherwise not known or deliberately ignored? Do you believe that things will one day change?

- I feel passionately about social issues in the developing world. Journalism is an important conduit for voices which may not otherwise be heard. Documentaries can be a wonderful tool for engaging listeners and making these issues compelling and accessible. A subject like maternal mortality may seem rather dry, for example, but in the programme we tried to bring it to life by sharing some extraordinary real stories, including a woman having a dead baby removed by Caesarian and a young girl screaming in terror as she was rushed in, as a complicated emergency, to deliver her first child.

I am optimistic that human and social rights do steadily advance as countries develop the resources to address them. I’ve reported on many forms of cruelty and violence but also met countless people who fight for change. Their courage and determination give me hope.

Q: When speaking about the joys of writing, you have said that the best moments are “those moments of complete engagement when I feel as if I am the characters, feeling their feelings and thinking their thoughts”. How difficult do you find it to separate yourself mentally from the characters in your story, especially when most deeply engrossed in the writing process?

– There is something special about those moments when, as a writer, I feel totally caught up in creating and imagining a scene or character. The characters feel very vivid to me and it is odd to realise that they don’t yet exist for anyone else. By the same token, once I’ve lived with the characters for two or three years before publication, they feel very personal to me. That makes it exciting but also startling when I first start to hear readers talking about the characters, for example members of a book group debating a character’s motivations or actions. Perhaps there are parallels with being a parent: they begin with you but it’s right for them to evolve to such an extent that they can leave you eventually and live an independent life.

Q:  And lastly, the one we ask everyone! World of Books is dedicated to providing good-quality second-hand books to the public. In a world with an ever-growing digital media base, and increasing environmental concerns, do you believe in the importance of giving each physical book the chance of a new home?

- One of the many pleasures of reading a good book lies in sharing it afterwards. A well-thumbed copy of a novel has the additional layer of its own history in someone else’s hands. Since I was a child, I’ve always browsed through second hand book shelves. There’s the additional excitement of the unexpected: never knowing what you might find. Every writer wants as many people as possible to read their work – so the more times a copy is read, the better for everyone.

Thank you for a fantastic interview Jill, it’s been really appreciated. Make sure you have a nose at Jill’s website here. And why not grab a copy of her books from World of Books?

Grace McCleen

Hi Grace,

Thank you for agreeing to talk to us today! We’re really excited to talk to an author who has just started out as a published writer, especially someone who has sparked so much excitement!

Q: One of the main things that struck us about your website is the artwork on display, not just from the paintings and sketches you worked on at A-Level, but the navigation around the site itself. Art is obviously something that stimulates you Grace, and allows you to express yourself; do you find it easier to explain how you’re feeling through the medium of art or through words?

- I think I find words hardest of all. I think the most enjoyable thing for me is to express myself through music, so art is in the middle. They’re both still quite difficult, but not as hard as words.

One of Grace's little people: Jake

Q: We’ve got to admit, we here at World of Books love your figures of little people (these can all be seen on Grace’s site). When you were younger you created dozens of these models (including recognisable characters such as Rumplestiltskin, Sherlock Holmes and even the tooth fairy) which, in their medieval clothes all seem as though they could have stepped right out of a fairytale. Our favourite is Mother Gentle, as she seems to exude a warmth that matches her name. How long did each figure take you to make? And what do they mean to you?

- I can’t really answer that as I made them all together, so I made all the heads together, then all the arms and legs together, then the bodies. So I had heaps of heads, arms and legs lying around. Overall it took about 7 or 8 months to do all of them. I wasn’t very well at the time so I was doing them mainly at night-time when I felt better. It was about 4-6 years ago now, and I suppose it was like a period of madness. Being ill, I couldn’t really do anything or see anybody so I completely entered into this little world. I wanted to make houses as well, I could have done lots more, to be honest, it could have taken the rest of my life!

Q: Where did the idea for ‘The Land of Decoration‘ come from?

- I didn’t really get the idea from making these models because I was interested in making things even as a child, so the book has sort of gone back to then. The idea came from a book I was writing to begin with, a very long book which didn’t work very well, but in the first page of The Land of Decoration I just took the ideas completely from the long book, despite it not having anything to do with Judith.

Q: When speaking about your songs you say “most of the songs came one afternoon when I was playing into a dictaphone”. Do new ideas for songs come to you whilst you go about everyday life, or do they naturally flow when you sit down to the task?

- No not really, they seem to have stopped now. That was about 2 years ago when I wrote most of those songs, but I’m not writing anything at the moment. Maybe I won’t ever again, I don’t know.

Q: So for any aspiring authors who are aiming to get where you are now, what advice could you give?

- Don’t go to any creative writing classes or schools because they’ll turn you into a clone and you’ll just end up writing the same as everyone else. To be honest, if you’re meant to write, you’ll write. Don’t force yourself to, don’t try to tick any boxes or jump through any hoops. Don’t try to fill any criteria that is supposedly to do with good writing, because all the most amazing books have broken all the rules and often weren’t understood at the time and were criticised and ridiculed. Work in a vacuum if you can. Read, read other really good books. Stick to your guns and go with your instincts.

Q: As we’ve already mentioned, your debut novel, The Land of Decoration, was released March 1^st. The novel tells the story of ten-year-old Judith, who is part of a small religious sect along with her Father. Although she is bullied at school, Judith finds peace in her model of the Promised Land which she calls The Land of Decoration – a little world full of little people, roads and seas. When Judith is fearful of going to school one day, she believes she performs a miracle through her model world, but from then on her life is turned upside down. When asked about this work, you said “in the novel I tried to dramatise what belief can feel like. The whole story is a metaphor for that”. Do you think it has become harder in our modern society for people to hold onto as pure a faith as Judith does in your novel? As religion is often a subject a lot of people avoid, have you been surprised at the rapid success of your work?

The Land of Decoration

- Yes I do, I think it has become harder. I think even people who have a faith and believe in God and Christianity, often waver a bit sometimes. Judith’s faith is quite unusual, partly because she is a child and partly because she is so isolated so she doesn’t have much to challenge this faith. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised at the success of the novel. I have had people who have gotten the wrong end of the stick and who have thought I wrote it to have a go about God and Christians, but on the whole people have been fascinated because it’s like a window into another world, and I always thought it would be like that, I didn’t think the subject matter would alienate most people. I think this is mostly due to the way I deal with it; you could write a very boring and offensive novel about religion, but I think because it’s through a child’s eyes, it’s humourous, touching and quite innocent.

Q: “If fiction is life in microcosm, then the most intricate examples of the art are those in which protagonists create their own miniature worlds. It is in this tradition of microcosmic fiction that one might tentatively place Grace McCleen’s loveable, unique and thrillingly uncategorisable debut novel…This is an extraordinary and peculiarly haunting novel” (review from The Financial Times). To what extent would you agree that this novel is “uncategorisable”?

- Yes, I suppose I would agree with this. Obviously it is a novel and most people see it as that, but I liked this review very much.

Q: So we know that you’ve finished writing your next book (pause whilst we have a quick cheer here!), which is due out in 2013, and will be called ‘The Professor of Poetry’. This second novel is “about time, stillness and music”. For those of us who are already fans of yours based on ‘The Land of Decoration’, what can we expect from this book?

- There isn’t much storyline, it’s kind of a very still novel, and I expect it will be challenging and potentially boring for a lot of readers. In contrast to The Land of Decoration it’s very slow-paced, and it deals with very tiny things. No-one is getting beaten up, there’s no strike, there’s no heads down the toilet, it’s very much about details and internal monologues; the style is incredibly different. I think some people really will like it and some people really won’t.

An inspiration for Grace: Franz Kafka

Q: Who inspires you?

- Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, W.G Sebald, those are just contemporary writers. I could go on forever! There’s lots of other writers like Kafka, the Brontes, Thomas Mann, and that’s just prose writers. It depends how long you want the list to be!

Q: What is your favourite book?

- Oh my goodness, I really don’t know. Possibly Moby Dick, Mrs Dalloway, possibly HouseKeeping. Those are definitely three of my favourites.

Q: And lastly, World of Books is dedicated to providing good-quality second-hand books to the public. In a world with an ever-growing digital media base, and increasing environmental concerns, do you believe in the importance of giving each physical book the chance of a new home?

- I don’t believe in wasting books. It is important to give books a new home. I particularly like old, or second-hand books rather than new books, because they have a history. There are little stains on the pages and scribbles that you can share. I think it’s a crime if a book is thrown out.

Thank you for a great interview Grace! Make sure you grab a copy of The Land of Decoration if you haven’t already, it’s well worth a read as an introduction to an exciting new author! And if you fancy a good read, make sure you visit the World of Books site today!

Mary Berry

Hi Mary,

Thank you for letting us interview you Mary, you’re definitely the Queen of cooking, so we’re thrilled!

Q: What do you regard as your guilty comfort food?

- Toast and marmalade at times when it is not breakfast !

Q: What’s the average day in the life of Mary Berry?

- Well it can vary but when I am at home and not filming I get up early and have breakfast with my husband. I go and feed our ducks who are waiting for their breakfast and Paul takes our black Labrador Millie for a walk. Lucy Young my assistant arrives and we sit and go through emails and the plan for the day. We have recipes to test for books or TV and we set too and methodically test them. We discuss new ideas and the plan of the diary and carefully reply to emails from publishers, companies, charities and the public. When I am filming I am up at 5am and home about 7pm so this is different again.

Q: As we’ve already mentioned, your newest cookery book, ‘Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook’, was released on 1^st February this year. This book is actually a revised version of ‘The Complete Cookbook‘ but has been modernised and updated with 30 new recipes from large family meals to intimate dinner parties. The idea of the book is to “give you inspiration every time”. With the dozens of cookery books you’ve now written Mary, how easy do you find it coming up with new and fresh ideas?

- Luckily we get new ingredients all the time and they become popular and fashionable, fennel, red chard, new salad leaves. I am now revisiting classic recipes from the 70′s. My assistants Lucy and Lucinda are young and give me new ideas like bowl food, risottos, wraps etc.

Q: We’ve found out that your personal favourite cake to make is a ginger treacle tray bake (sounds delicious we must say). Is this your favourite cake to make due to it’s simplicity when making it, or due to the finished cake itself? What has been the hardest cake you’ve made?

Battenburg - Can be a challenge!

- To be honest I love eating it, but it is simple to make too which means it can be made in a flash if family or friends arrive. Battenburg cake is a challenge but we have worked hard to make it easy to make without using a special tin.

Q: Now a lot of World of Books customers have come across your first cookery book, The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook which was published in 1966. Since then you’ve written loads more cook books ranging from quick and easy recipes for people on the go in ‘Real Food Fast’ (2007), to cakes and baking in ‘My Kitchen Table: 100 Cakes and Bakes’. With over 60 years experience in cooking, how would you say it has changed and evolved over the years?

- I think it’s the ingredients – they are more readily available and basic ingredients are more prepared. In the 1960s chicken breasts did not exist – you had to buy a chicken, cut it in 4 and use the breasts, legs, wings and drumsticks. We use less fat nowadays too, less sugar and non stick pans. The choice of dairy has changed too, with crème fraiche, mascarpone, and lots of different creams available, which means icings for cakes do not always need to be the same.

Q: In 1994 you and your daughter Annabel launched your Original Family Recipe Salad Dressing enterprise. Although the products were originally sold at your Aga Workshop cookery school, they proved such a success that you both set about selling “top quality dressings and sauces, using the very best ingredients” nationwide. The products are GM free, contain free-range eggs, have no artificial flavourings or preservatives, and all dressings (except the Caesar Dressing) are 100% vegetarian (sounds good to us!) Now the product range is the UK’s leading provider of gourmet salad dressings and sauces, and is also sold in Ireland and Germany. What was yours and your daughter’s inspiration for these dressings? And have you been surprised at their success?

- The salad dressing was a family recipe which everyone thought was special whenever I made it at home. Annabel suggested one day that we bottle and sell it and this is where it all started. I used to make a Mustard dressing at home too, and this soon was bottled followed by our other flavours and we now have dressings, sauces and chutneys.

Q: If you could go back and give your 16-year old self any words of advice, what would they be?

- Choose a vocation that you enjoy and put your all into it. Get all the experience you can and work hard – you will feel good about yourself and the rewards will come.

Q: For the past two years you have been a judge on BBC2′s ‘The Great British Bake Off’. How much fun is this to be a part of?

- I just love it ! The bakers are all amateur and do it for love of baking, and the filming is great fun. I have learnt new things from them and with the internet ingredients are available to everyone.

The Great British Bake Off

Q: So, we’ll admit, some of the cakes made by us here at World of Books have often been disasters, with soggy sponges and crumbly messes to tell the tale! What are your top three bits of advice for any aspiring (or just trying!) bakers out there?

- Follow a good recipe, weigh accurately and keep it simple if you are new to baking. Remember all ovens vary, and most of all enjoy it.

Q: And finally, World of Books is dedicated to providing good-quality second-hand books to the public. In a world with an ever-growing digital media base, and increasing environmental concerns, do you believe in the importance of giving each physical book the chance of a new home?

- Oh yes, I love the touch of a book and the passing through the family generations and, as you say, recycling them. Hopefully there is a place for both books and e-books in the future.

Thank you for a lovely interview Mary! And to our World of Books customers, if this has got your taste-buds tingling then make sure you grab a copy of Mary’s newest cookbook ‘Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook‘, it comes thoroughly recommended by us. And interested in trying out some of Mary’s old recipes? Why not visit the World of Books site today and see what we have available?

Dan Abnett

Hi Dan,

Many thanks for agreeing to an interview with us today Dan. We know our World of Books customers enjoy hearing what people have to say about loads of different genres, so being able to talk to you about comic books and science-fiction is a real pleasure.

Ibram Gaunt

Q: If you could be any of your characters, who would you be?

- Probably Ibram Gaunt, the hero of Gaunt’s Ghosts, because I’ve written more stories about him than any one else, and I feel I know he well. But different characters appeal for different reasons, and a few of my supporting characters are thinly-disguised (or wish-fulfilment!) versions of me.

Q: Your latest novel, ‘Horus Heresy: Know No Fear’, was released on 1^st March 2012. The basic synopsis of this work is: “When war comes to Calth and sets the planet aflame, the Ultramarines face annihilation against a foe who will use any means to settle their bitter grudge”. A lot of the reviews already have proclaimed this book “unputdownable”, what would you say to your fans about this book? And what would you say to any sceptics out there?

- Writing for the Black Library, and for Doctor Who and Torchwood, is technically ‘tie in fiction’, which is often looked down upon by ‘proper authors’. I’m delighted that these books are reaching a massive international audience, and are being taken seriously. Know No Fear is particularly hi-octane Combat SF, as it depicts a significant battle in the Horus Heresy (which is basically the Warhammer universe’s creation myth). One of the best compliments I was ever paid was, “your book was so much better than I was expecting it to be”, meaning, I suppose, that it was better than it HAD to be. I feel I have a responsibility to the audience to make every book as good as it can be, not just ‘fit for purpose’. I think some authors write franchise and tie-in on ‘autopilot’, just for the pay-cheque. Which is why it has a bad rep. I think they’re ‘proper books’.

Q: Are your family as into comics as you?

- Perhaps not quite as much as me. My parents are artists, so I grew up drawing and writing stories. When I discovered comics, I realised I could do both of my favourite things at the same time, and spent many hours as a kid creating my own comics. Finally, I couldn’t draw fast enough to illustrate the stories I was writing, so the art took a back seat.

Q: In what ways would you say that the comic book world has changed and evolved in the years you have been involved with it?

- Styles change in terms of characters and stories, but the biggest changes are happening now with the delivery system in the market: so many comics are now published directly in digital form alongside the print edition. As the comic industry was beginning to falter – comics being seen as ‘old fashioned’ – this may be a great shot in the arm for the art form.

Marvel vs DC

Q: Now this cheeky one has got to be asked! Marvel or DC?

- I grew up reading, and loving, Marvel characters, simply because where I lived you could get Marvel at the newsagents, but not DC. So Marvel has childhood nostalgia on its side. But I have a very happy relationship with both companies, and both have spectacular line-ups of classic characters.

Q: What would your words of advice be for any aspiring comic-book artists that may read this?

- Draw. A lot. Go to conventions. Get noticed. Maybe use the internet to publish your own comic and get seen.

Q: How do you feel about comics being made available on Kindles and similar tablets in the coming months? How do you envision the comic book future as a result of this?

- As I said, it will be a great boost to the industry. People can subscribe and gets issues sent to them the moment they’re published. devices like iPad’s make a great place to read comics, which can be designed to move frame to frame on the iPad. It’s going to change, in interesting ways, the way comic book storytelling works.

Q: So, much to our excitement, you’re currently writing Resurrection Man for the high profile New 52 from DC comics. This is a more horror-orientated series which is quite different from your previous Superhero or Sci Fi work. What genre do you prefer writing for?

Resurrection Man

- Probably SF most of all, but I love them all. Resurrection Man is a character I created with Andy Lanning and Butch Guice for DC back in the 1990s, and it was great to be invited to ‘re-invent’ him for the New 52 launch. He’s a character that comes back from the dead with a new super power each time, so “bringing him back” for DC made perfect sense.

Q: What would you say the challenges are to bringing previously established characters who are relatively unknown (like Mr Majestic and Resurrection Man) to a wider audience?

- There’s no formula, you just try and make a character interesting, and hope that they touch a nerve with the audience. Often less famous characters can be the most interesting: there’s a limit to what you can do with, say, Superman or Batman, but with a lesser known character to you can really push the story into radical or unexpected places, without being in danger of ruining an international icon.

Q: And lastly, World of Books is dedicated to providing good-quality second-hand books to the public. In a world with an ever-growing digital media base, and increasing environmental concerns, do you believe in the importance of giving each physical book the chance of a new home?

- Absolutely. I really support the growth in digital publishing, but at heart, I adore physical books and comics. Lets find them good homes, where they can be cherished, or at least get the surplus ones disposed of sensibly. Everyone can give a book or a comic a home, can’t they?

Thanks for a brilliant interview Dan! Make sure you take a look at Dan’s Site for updates on his exploits, and we strongly recommend you have a read of Horus Heresy: Know No Fear – a thrilling book for Sci-Fi fans to say the very least. And why not take a look at the World of Books Site to see what other Dan Abnett books we have available today?

JoJo Moyes

Hi Jojo,

Since your newest novel, Me Before You, was released on January 5th this year we know you’re busy with promotional work (even recently being interviewed by Richard and Judy!), so we appreciate you chatting to us today.

Q: What is the average day in the life of Jojo Moyes?

- If I’m writing, I get up at 6, write for an hour or so, and then get the animals fed and the children off to school. I might ride my horse for half an hour, then muck out, and then I’m back to work until they get home. I tend to do admin in the evenings, when they’re in bed.

Q: Your new novel, Me Before You, was released on 5^th January 2012. It tells the story of Lou Clark and Will Traynor, who meet one day and who change each other’s lives irrevocably forever. When we meet the two characters, Lou is working in a tea shop and is in a strained and loveless relationship, and Will is recovering from a motorcycle accident, that has broken not only his body, but his joy too. In your blog you say, “It is fair to say that even when starting it I knew the book would not be an “easy sell”. Books about quadriplegics tend not to be, especially when you throw in the words ‘carer’ and ‘Dignitas’. When I tried to describe the plot, people gave me the same look you give the woman who sings songs on the bus and tries to show you her socks”; what made you choose such a difficult subject area?

- I don’t really know. I can only say that experience has shown me that you can only write the book that you are burning to write, and that was the issue that wouldn’t leave my head. It was in the news, and in the newspapers, and it had that ‘what would I do?’ factor. Plus it had ordinary people dealing with extreme situations, which is always fascinating if you are a novelist. I am just glad that other people found it a compelling issue too.

Q: Have you had any feedback yet from people who are quadriplegics themselves, or their carers?

-Yes, and it has been overwhelmingly positive, which I must admit is a relief. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to feel that I was suggesting Will’s life wasn’t worth living. A few carers have said that the book gives an accurate representation of their lives, which is very gratifying as I did a lot of research. But best are those who said they were glad that I had created a properly sexy, compelling hero – who just happens to be quadriplegic.

Q: What have been the biggest influences of your career?

- Influences? That’s a hard one. My parents taught me the value of hard work, and I would say my career has been a hymn to persistence. But I’m friends with lots of other writers, and their wisdom and encouragement is vital when you work alone. More recently, my career has been influenced by Penguin, my new publishers, and of course Richard and Judy, who have helped bring me a whole new audience.

Q: Now it’s got to be asked, what was it like meeting Richard and Judy? Does it feel surreal that your novels are now a topic on their show?

- I blogged about this, but they are exactly as you see them on screen. I have loved them for so long that meeting them in person was completely surreal. I could not be more delighted that they picked up this book. Their backing made it feel like it was a worthwhile book – and a legitimate topic.

Q: Throughout your career you have also written as a journalist. How different do you find the style of writing you adopt for newspaper articles compared to novels? Which do you prefer?

- I prefer writing books, just for the immense freedom you have. But I do enjoy writing odd bits of journalism; it’s refreshing to start and finish something on the same day, instead of knowing you’re in for a year or more…

Jojo Moyes - Hard at Work

Q: Three of your books, The Last Letter from your Lover (2010), The Peacock Emporium (2004) and Sheltering Rain (2002) tell stories of people who are looking back on and rediscovering the past. How important is the past for you in sculpting the person you have become?

- One of the things I find increasingly fascinating about it is the degree to which we all carry the past with us, even if we try to ignore it. I, like most people, am very much the product of my experiences. But without wanting to sound all New Age-y, you have to be able to create new paths and patterns for yourself too.

Q: Just to add a little stir, do you own a kindle? And how do you feel about them?

- I do have a kindle, although I was reluctant at first. I don’t use it every day (I do love proper books) but e-readers are pretty unbeatable when it comes to travelling.

Q: What top three things would be on your bucket list?

- Hmm. I’d like to ride with the Cadre Noir riding school. I’d like to scuba dive around the Great Barrier Reef. And I’d like to learn to sing properly. Will that do?

Q: And the one we ask everyone – World of Books is dedicated to providing good-quality second-hand books to the public. In a world with an ever-growing digital media base, and increasing environmental concerns, do you believe in the importance of giving each physical book the chance of a new home?

-Absolutely. I am a great fan of second hand book shops. I hate the idea of anything going to waste.

Thank you for spending time with us today JoJo! And to our World of Book readers, make sure you get yourself a copy of Me Before You - it’s well worth the read! And want to catch up on any of Jojo’s other books? Visit the World of Books site today and have a browse. Alternatively visit Jojo’s site here.

L2B

The Team:

Our fantastic staff have really stepped up to the challenge of riding this great distance. We have had a lot of interest for entries and have managed to get two teams together! For the Day Ride we have, Jason Rae, Colin Fullard, Joel Bartley and Scott Young. For the Night Ride we have, Zoe Cornish, Jason Rae, Colin Fullard, Scott Young, Joel Bartley, Kelsey Sparshott, Bob Simms, Michael Laundon, Graham Chown and Neil Smith.

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