🍴Sunday Brunch with Jaffareadstoo ~ Caroline Scott

 

On this quiet Sunday morning why don't you put the kettle on, make your favourite breakfast and settle down for Sunday Brunch with Jaffareadstoo

🍴I'm delighted to welcome, author, Caroline Scott to our Sunday Brunch today🍴

🍴Good morning, Caroline.What favourite food are you bringing to Sunday brunch?

How about I bring some good baguettes? And does Jaffa like croissants? My cat adores them. (I do hope no vets are listening.) 

🍴Would you like a pot of English breakfast tea, a strong Americano, or a glass of Bucks Fizz?

A coffee would be lovely, thank you. Perhaps we might drift towards the fizz later… 

🍴Where shall we eat brunch – around the kitchen table, in the formal dining room, or outside on the patio?

Is the sun shining? Let’s grab the chance to be outside.

🍴Shall we have music playing in the background? And if so will you share with us a favourite song or piece of music that makes you happy?

I heard this 1928 version of Vaughan Williams’ ‘The Lark Ascending’ on the Backlisted Podcast in March and it really touched me. There’s something enchantingly lark-like about this old recording and your soul seems to lift with it.

🍴Which of your literary heroes (dead or alive) are joining us for Sunday Brunch today?

Sadly, most of my invitations have been posted to the hereafter. I’ve asked Helen Dunmore, Stella Gibbons, Barbara Pym, Angela Carter, Thomas Hardy, Wilfred Owen, Dylan Thomas and Ted Hughes. It should be lively, shouldn’t it? 

🍴Which favourite book will you bring to Sunday Brunch?

If I had to pick one single book to evangelise about over brunch, it would be J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country. A perfect little book, it takes you on a picturesque and quietly emotional journey and always leaves you feeling slightly better about life. 

🍴When you are writing do you still find time to read for pleasure? And is there a book you would like to read but haven’t had time for …yet! 

When I’m writing I tend to focus on reading work-related books, mostly non-fiction, and don’t give myself much time off. But I’ve got a long just-for-pleasure reading list waiting for when I finish my current project. (Oh, joy!) I really wanted to read Horatio Clare’s The Light in the Dark last winter. I read such wonderful reviews of it. I’ll definitely be making time for it this winter. 

Elliot & Thompson
3 October 2019

🍴What’s the oldest book on your book shelf?

A book of Robert Browning poems from 1911. I have to admit that I fished it out of somebody else’s rubbish sack! 

🍴Where do you find the inspiration for your novels?

I mostly find ideas through reading non-fiction. I’m always jotting down potential plots. 

🍴Have you a favourite place to settle down to write and do you find it easier to write in winter or summer?

I write more in the winter than in the summer because I have fewer work commitments, and with the long, dark days, I feel like I can justify time spent escaping into stories. I usually work at my dining room table. It’s well lit, I’m nice and warm by the radiator, and my dog is very often snoring by my side.


🍴When writing to a deadline are you easily distracted and if so how do you bring back focus on your writing?

I’m pretty good at keeping to deadlines. I’ve worked from home since 2003, and you do get into the discipline of managing your own time schedule… that, or you slide into watching Homes under the Hammer in your pyjamas all day. If I get stuck, I tend to take my dog for a walk. Poor Tally has to listen to a lot of dialogue and plot lines.

🍴Give us four essential items that a writer absolutely needs?

Books. Peace. Space. Tea. 

🍴What can you tell us about your latest novel or your current work in progress?

I’m currently writing a novel about a group of artists in Cornwall in the 1920s – but I shouldn’t say too much about that because my agent hasn’t read it yet!

  

Caroline's latest novel. When I come Home Again 

was published by Simon & Schuster on 1 November 2020

Simon & Schuster
November 2020

They need him to remember. He wants to forget.

1918. In the last week of the First World War, a uniformed soldier is arrested in Durham Cathedral. When questioned, it becomes clear he has no memory of who he is or how he came to be there.

The soldier is given the name Adam and transferred to a rehabilitation home. His doctor James is determined to recover who this man once was. But Adam doesn’t want to remember. Unwilling to relive the trauma of war, Adam has locked his memory away, seemingly for good.

When a newspaper publishes a feature about Adam, three women come forward, each claiming that he is someone she lost in the war. But does he believe any of these women? Or is there another family out there waiting for him to come home?

Caroline,where can we follow you on social media? 

Twitter @CScottBooks 

Instagram

Website

More about Caroline

After completing a PhD in History, at the University of Durham, Caroline Scott worked as a researcher in Belgium and France. She has a particular interest in the experience of women during the First World War, in the challenges faced by the returning soldier, and in the development of tourism and pilgrimage in the former conflict zones. Caroline is originally from Lancashire, but has lived in southwest France for the past fifteen years.

Thanks so much, Caroline, for joining us for Sunday Brunch 

It's been great fun!

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