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From time to time at CCB we ask a guest to curate a book list, and this March, inspired by International Women’s Day, the centenary of the suffragette movement and a recent boom in positive reading matter for girls, we asked Sally Nicholls to choose some of her favourite feminist titles. Children’s Books Princess Smartypants | Babette Cole Princess Smartypants doesn’t … Read more
In 2015, the Oxford Junior Dictionary published a new edition that saw many words from the natural world, like blackberry and acorn, omitted in favour of more technical terms, such as broadband. Dismayed at this, illustrator Jackie Morris was inspired to contact nature writer Robert Macfarlane to write The Lost Words, a beautiful book which has provoked an extraordinary reaction. … Read more
Patrick Gale’s sixteenth novel, A Place Called Winter was a Radio 2 Book Club selection, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize, the Walter Scott Prize and the Green Carnation Award and and is now being developed as a BBC serial. His two part film, Man in an Orange Shirt will be on BBC 1 this summer. He is a … Read more
It’s fast approaching Valentine’s Day and, while we may declare we don’t like the commercial nature of the holiday, a gift for a loved one certainly wouldn’t go amiss. To be honest, even if you just want a treat for yourself for the cold February nights Crediton High Street shops will have something for you! Here are some suggestions that … Read more
On 30th January at the Costa Book Awards, Helen Dunmore’s collection Inside the Wave posthumously won Book of the Year 2017. As only the second person to posthumously receive this prize, the award was received by Helen’s husband Frank Charnley and their two children Patrick and Tess. Inside the Wave reflects on the poet’s cancer diagnosis and looming death with immense … Read more
On 14th January 2018, the T. S. Eliot Prize Winner was announced. Ocean Vuong’s astounding debut collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, traces the aftermath of war across generations. In a video about his collection he says “a lot of the poems in the collection attempt to navigate history through a rewriting, or rather a recasting, of history into a … Read more
Claire is author of the Knitbone Pepper books, a series about a funny, friendly family of ghost animals who reside at crumbling Starcross Hall. Claire and Knitbone recently won the Simply Books X Factor award, voted for by 2,000 children, and were shortlisted for the Sainsburys Children’s Fiction Award in 2017. We’ve recently been visiting schools with Claire, who read to … Read more
Book-world always begins the year promptly, as on the 2nd of January the Costa Book Awards 2017 category winners are announced. There are awards for five categories; First Novel, Novel, Children’s Book, Poetry and Biography. The Costa Book Awards have been running since 1971 and in 1985 an overall winners award was introduced. Last years winner, Sebastian Barry, was the … Read more
The disastrous fire which destroyed the Royal Clarence Hotel in October 2016 shocked Exeter and received widespread dramatic coverage. The historic hotel made up one corner of the block of buildings between St Martin’s Lane and Broadgate, many of which are ancient constructions and for which still exist rich historical documentation. Todd Gray and Sue Jackson have mined this rare … Read more
