About a month ago, after losing my entire manuscript to a computer virus, I was told by a very nice Microsoft engineer that ‘the world is divided into two types of people. Those who back-up, and those who learn to.’ A costly mistake and one that I won’t forget in a hurry . . . but it’s done! The new novel, tentatively entitled In Love and War, will be out next Spring. It’s set against the backdrop of the Arab Spring and it’s the first time I’ve written about a place – and events – that are still in the process of evolving. I’ve visited quite a few of the places I’ve been writing about and although I never, ever thought I’d say this, without my new (and much loved) Kindle by my side, it would have been a heck of a lot harder, and much less enjoyable. I have a library (well, that might be stretching it – a ‘collection’ is a much better word!) of thousands of books, literally, which I’ve dutifully carted around the globe in shipping containers over the past thirty years as I’ve moved house and home. I always keep a selection of my top twenty or thirty novels with me whenever I go away for longer than a month – a bit like a childhood teddy bear, or a much-loved blanket – but it’s quite hard work lugging thirty books around, especially when the aim is to travel light. Suffice it to say Kindle has changed all that. I don’t know that I’ll ever give up the pleasure of holding a physical book in my hands but I do know my back will thank me for joining the digital age (at long last). It’s that old adage, I suppose. Make it work. For you.

Here’s to Kindle, and to the last few days of reading on it in the sun!

Lesley