John Mitchinson

If you want to watch how a writer...

builds every time, which some writers are not able to do, but how a novelist builds every time on what they've done in the previous book.

To get from the golden child to the blue flower in eight moves is a fantastically interesting and inspiring thing.

So also, Lucy, you wrote about her, didn't you?

You wrote a really fantastic essay about Anita Bruckner and Penelope Fitzgerald as women in London.

And the interesting thing about that was, so Penelope Fitzgerald is...

You know, certainly the earlier novels, which are autobiographical, you can see, you know, the idea of a woman.

Of which this is one.

Solitary woman.

In the London setting.

But one of the other brilliant things about Penelope Fitzgerald is she loved not just telly, but Thompson package tours.

Package holidays.

And so she was really widely travelled.

Yes, in The Golden Child.

Yes, because the character goes to Moscow.

It's so true.

I'm just going to read the final paragraph.

I know you will want to hear what Geoffrey Archer thought of the bookshop.

But before we hear from Geoff, we're going to, I'm just going to read you, and I'm telling listeners now, spoilers, I'm about to read the final paragraph of the bookshop.

So you might want to fast forward to Geoffrey Archer, or indeed past Geoffrey Archer.