In 2011, to celebrate Brookner's birthday and her 30th year publishing novels, we created International Anita Brookner Day. At the time we had lots of readers and bloggers reading and writing about Brookner and her novels. The result was lots of first-time Brookner readers and lots of blogger book reviews. Follow the links below to find out more.
1. An index of blogger reviews of Brookner's novels. If you have a review of your own that you would like to submit to be included in the index, I would be delighted to add it here, both as a blog post and as a link in the index. Shoot me an email at hogglestock [at] outlook [dot] com.
2. An index to London place names in Brookner's fiction. If you have ever read any of Brookner's novels, you know that London plays a prominent role, especially as her characters love to walk. As I re-read all of Brookner's 24 novels and 1 novella in chronological order, I have been keeping a list of all the London place names I come across. So far I have indexed the first 8 and am about to start on number 9, Lewis Percy.
3. A chance encounter with Brookner at Marks and Spencer. Writer Sophie Smith gave us a firsthand account of her running into Brookner while out shopping. Compared to other authors, there is relatively little known about Brookner's personal life. We did hear a bit of gossip back in 2011 that she was aware of IABD and had contemplated acknowledging it but didn't like the fact that we had appropriated her birthday for our celebration. A very private woman indeed.
Thank you, Thomas. Do have a look at the Julian Barnes piece about her in today's Guardian (19.3.16). A propos her shopping habits, someone once found a shopping list in a book AB had lent them - small pot of marmite and slimming biscuits - perhaps that was was in her bag the day I bumped into her. Also insightful piece by Linda Grant in Saturday Telegraph (19.3). All the best, Sophie Smith
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