Books For Older Readers: Newsletter Four

Because we never stop reading.........

As the ‘Books for Older Readers’ group begins to work its way through its second year, here are some statistics:

The BFOR website has now had over 21,000 hits.

There are 8 pages of books, including a selection of shorter reads and poetry.

We have 426 members in our facebook group, 137 followers on twitter, and numbers continue to grow.

So what’s been happening on the site?

February brought a new initiative for Book Clubs to the BFOR website. If you visit our Bookclub page,  you will find a selection of books with really interesting free downloadable sets of questions written by each author. There are also some excellent discounted offers for multiple copies. We hope you find this useful. We would also welcome any feedback about the page. Please help us to grow by sharing the website and facebook group with others who may be interested.

Author News

Christine Webber, one of our original members, is now offering her services as an audio book narrator, and is pleased to offer a 50% discount on fees to members of the Alliance of Independent Authors. See her website for more details. Rates for members of BFOR will also be discounted.

Another of our founder members Maggie Christensen, a prolific writer of books which fit with our BFOR themes, (originally from Scotland, but now resident in Australia) has a series of ebook reductions and a new publication planned. This is the link to her UK Amazon page. Look out for the release of a ‘A Single Woman’ on 9^th May.

Set in Scotland and a sequel to Isobel’s Promise. Isla is determinedly single, but finds herself unaccountably drawn to the grief-stricken father of one of her students.

BFOR author Rosie Travers  has recently released a second novel. ‘Your Secret's Safe With Me’, is a romantic suspense novel set on the south coast of England. 

Both this and her debut novel, ‘The Theatre of Dreams’ will be reduced to 99p on Amazon Kindle for Easter weekend - 19-22 April. Here is the link to her Amazon page .

BEFOR founder, Claire Baldry, will be featured in a new series of author interviews on Lynne McVernon’s blog , ‘Constantly Reinventing’. Here is the link to the blog https://lynnemcvernon.com/

We would like to thank all our followers and subscribers for their continued support.

After Brexit

I can already hear your sighs as you read the title of this blog post.

However, whatever the outcome of the political fiasco in which we find ourselves, there will come a time when the issue is not headline news. It may take months. It may take years. But the Brexit process will not last forever.

And when the matter is resolved, my one hope is that our political representatives on all sides of the house have long enough memories to learn from what has passed.

I have spent hours watching in horror at the proceedings in the House of Commons. I am an ardent supporter of democracy and polite freedom of speech, but this seems to have developed into a confrontational, party led political system where occasional balanced speeches are drowned out by egotistical rants from every political persuasion. And yes, I know we have a female Prime Minister, but much of the measured discussion seems to be accompanied by loud male grunts. Our ‘great’ political democracy is in danger of becoming the laughing stock of the world.

So after Brexit, or no Brexit, or whatever, this is my plea.

Could we please have MPs who genuinely listen to each other and the electorate.

Could compromise mean compromise, not ‘only if on my terms’.

Could the system allow our politicians of all political viewpoints to admit when they have made a mistake? Guess what, no one is perfect!

Could there be some sort of legal requirement for adequate preparation and scrutiny prior to a referendum?     

Maybe a good start would be to reorganise the proceedings at the House of Commons to make it more family friendly. A bit more required work/life balance for our MPs might encourage a group of politicians, male and female, who understand the ‘give and take’ required for normal people to survive in the real world.

But will anything really change?