I am a highly approachable Independent Expert Private English/English Literature Tutor located in Greater Manchester with over twenty years teaching and tutoring experience from Secondary to Postgraduate Degree level.
Wow, tough question! I’ll choose, The Female Man by Joanna Russ. An exciting, subversive and very witty Feminist Sci-fi novel. It had a massive impact on me when I… Read More »The Female Man by Joanna Truss : Carmel Jones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn7exBrCiUI A friend reminded me last night of this truly exceptional musical. Claire said that the music is inspirational enough to even create faith. Listening to Yvonne Elliman again this morning… Read More »Yvonne Elliman: I don't know how to love him
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j52uTt82WM When I first saw the album cover in Will Parker’s ‘cave’attic record shop in Ormskirk it blew my mind(man)! After my dad took the decision to abandon his tangerine… Read More »Pink Floyd: Great Gig in the sky
Oh no. Here’s the latest lazy speak word that follows on from ‘passionate’ as the most over-used word by the can’t be ar**ed to truly engage their brains copywriters. In… Read More »Iconic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi7R5HU2vsE woa-oh, woa-oh oh ohhave I ever told youhow good it feels to hold youit isn’t easy to explainand though I’m really tryingI think I may start cryingmy heart can’t… Read More »Ronettes: Baby I love you!
She walked towards the fountain so that her skin caught at the mist before she could dip her head beneath the water and hold her breath. How light it was… Read More »immersion
Swampy, sexy and very off-centre. Made me go to Savannah just to see the house where a lover turned killer was ‘murdered’ by his dead victim eight years later… Love… Read More »John Berendt: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
My favourite book is Beloved – nothing captures my eyes and senses quite like it – its language is raw and its poetry and depth of thought unremittingly sits smiling… Read More »Catherine Corri: Toni Morrison's Beloved
I remember first reading Rebecca on a Sunday morning, only intending to read the first couple of chapters before beginning some ‘work’. But the opening lines, ‘last night I dreamt… Read More »Daphne Du Maurier Rebecca: Kim
I love the book because of the great richness of characters. The characters live! There is melodrama but it’s great melodrama! AND you love them apart from Estella!
The closeness of a family is not something that I am familiar with. My only experience of love is in the correspondence that I shared with my brother through some… Read More »Catherine Corri : Vincent
Demeter could not tell where he began and ended. He moved his arms to show her the poem and she saw his hand go through the paper so that she… Read More »words
Demeter could not easily differentiate between one shape and another. Her toes would stroke over objects at night and she would wonder what she was sleeping with- an old shirt,… Read More »shapes
As a child Demeter had promised to be sensible, but by the time the winged dragons had whirled her away to the sea-shore she was already calling for the… Read More »Catherine Corri: Demeter and the Pomegranate Seeds
This God delusion thing is infectious and got me thinking, primarily at the level of the concept of ‘delusion’ itself and then more particularly in terms of spiritual connectedness and down… Read More »Moira Eribenne: Altrusim vs. utilitarianism vs. spiritual connectedness
Do we care whoddunit here?
The poem lay dead on the page. Each word tired of its neighbor.Demeter lifted her tortoiseshell pen and chased a small teardrop of black ink across the the poem’s final… Read More »mind map
My favourite book as a child was the secret garden – which gave me a lifelong interest in growing things and was probably responsible for my choice of the last… Read More »Jean Stark: The Secret garden and other friends
‘Have you seen my blue scooter?’
Years before it had been a greenhouse and then the glass and plants were gone and it was ours. A Quaker family lived over the wall and when they invited us to play… Read More »Grandma's Garden
I would climb that small tree and feel invincible. Afternoons spent pretending to be Huck Finn, hidden from the sight of my dad’s white cortina, hunting down my brother who would hurtle up my… Read More »Grandma's garden Two
Traditions. The Gold Mask of Tutankhamun; Blue Peter annuals inscribed with tales of shy creatures who hid behind his study door ; sand cars built as big as spitfires on the beach. Handsome… Read More »Uncle Mick
Demeter touched her mother’s neck and traced the silver knots on the chain round to the fall of her mother’s throat . She pulled her mother back against her and… Read More »she came from a long long way
Nobody knew he had lost his heart to a woman with veiled eyes and hair red enough to burn you. She had attracted him with her refusal to talk, to look towards him as if… Read More »A visitor
Favourite book? The Great Gatsby: subtle and complex narrative (which film versions always fail to get), and the supreme example of the comic-tragic in the novel. It should be read… Read More »Barry Wood: The Great Gatsby
The first book I bought by my favourite writer: heroine, genius, the best. Shakespeare wrote plays – Kael wrote film criticism!
She’s funny and bossy and I want to be like her! And she’s cool!
Although I always say Morrison is the BEST …I adore The English Patient and it has that ‘tingle factor’ of recognition that only visionary Artists are able to ‘gift’ us. ‘If… Read More »Janet Lewison Ondaatje's English Patient and Morrison's Beloved.
Favourite book: Mark Helprin’s “Winter’s Tale”. I first picked up this book in the 80s, read it cover-to-cover, and wept at the ending. Gorgeous descriptive writing, vivid characters, and… Read More »Karen Bromelow: Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
