One of the unexpected pleasures of the last couple of years has been getting to know other writers and meeting many readers.

These days I’m spending very long hours alone in my shed in trackie bottoms thinking about lies and dung beetles. It’s easy to become (even more) misanthropic and mad so getting out, once in a while, putting on real clothes and talking to book lovers is probably essential. So here’s a silly snap from this weekend’s Chipping Norton Literary Festival where I was lucky to be on a panel with writers Amanda Jennings, C.L. Taylor, and Hannah Beckerman.

I was talking about one of my favourite books, The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.  Highsmith – a somewhat complicated woman – once showed up at a literary cocktail party with a large handbag containing a head of lettuce and one hundred snails. These, she said, were ‘my company for the evening’. See. I could be much worse.