Michel Faber

Before the summer I hadn't read any Michel Faber. Since seeing the film, Under The Skin, however, I've read the book he wrote that inspired the film (film and book have material differences although the basic story is common to both).

I read his latest novel, The Book of Strange New Things, and enjoyed it and now I've started his second full novel, The Crimson Petal and the White, which Gill enjoyed but I'm not so sure about it. His writing is beautiful but it's also pretty graphic and this account of prostitution amid the squalor of Victorian London, leaves nothing to the imagination. So not light reading. But I thought the light on my reading in the summer house was too nice to miss.

I've just had a spread of pictures with a feature published in the latest edition of Classic Boat magazine. They gave this one a double spread so I was well pleased.