Working (mostly) from home, doing something I love, is a gift; right now, I wouldn’t change it for anything. That word ‘home’, though, should be interpreted as ‘anywhere I can sit with a Kindle or a laptop or a notebook’, and in July, it’s included: trains, planes, a boat, several different towns in a couple of different countries, and a yurt.

I love libraries. They’ve always been one of my life’s givens; wherever I’ve been in the world, I’ve visited a library. Whether it’s plate glass and modern chrome or an old Victorian school house, there’s a sense of familiarity, of safety even, and of something between expectation and excitement. You never know what you’ll find hidden inside this world of books.

What is a Mentor?

1. She’s the person holding the light at the (beginning, middle and) end of the tunnel when I’m flailing around in the dark, wailing and being neurotic.
2. The one who keeps giving me a good kick up the behind – but picks me up if I fall!
3. The ‘wise adviser’ originating from Homer’s Odyssey: entrusted with the care and education of Telemachus when Odysseus left for Troy.

Reading is my long-standing rebellion; my nose has barely been outside a book since I learned my ABC. Age seven, I had to be forcibly ejected ‘outside to play’; by ten, I had negotiated a bedroom swap with my brother because a street lamp shone through his window if the curtains were carefully angled. Still at primary school I wrote ‘books’ because I’d read everything in the (very small) mobile library. At eighteen, I managed the ultimate rebellious act: away from home, I could finally read a book whilst I was eating my breakfast. Or my lunch. Or my dinner… I don’t do it so much now; I’ve come full circle in trying to set an example for my own child, but, I can still conjure up that little frisson of daring. These days – when I’m feeling brave – I call myself a writer, and I like to think the...

Yesterday I received another marriage proposal. That's just about double figures now, and fifteen years after my first visit to Bangladesh, it's great to know A Blonde Bengali Wife  is still in such demand. The proposals aren't really to me, of course, they're to the 'character' of me I created in the book, and it's both interesting and disconcerting in equal measure...