Tags
Bannockburn, Clan Urquhart, George Garrett, ghosts, Mantua, novels, Sir Thomas Urquhart, the Admirable Crichton
Once upon a time, I received a strange call from a lady with a German accent, who desired to know if she could speak with the author of Lo Specchio Convesso – that is to say, The Convex Mirror, my first published novel. On being told that not only she could, but she was doing it already – the lady introduced herself as a researcher for the Clan Urquhart.
“The descendants of Sir Thomas?” asked I, entirely astounded. Because, you see, Sir Thomas was an adventurer and scholar in Seventeenth Century Scotland and, incidentally, a character in my novel… Continue reading
This one I’m pilfering straight from 
One thing of the English world that I wholeheartedly admire is the ability and will to keep the classics alive. In Italy we have this disastrous tendency to keep our Authors under glass, to be uncritically admired or nothing else…
“Imagine you can spend a day inside a book,” was the prompt – one of those things going around on Facebook, you know, that a friend passed on to me. “What would you choose?”
One day many years ago, in Edinburgh, I took shelter from yet another icy downpour in a little bookshop – and what could I do, but browse the shelves? For some reason, a small blue book caught my attention: Kidnapped, by R.L. Stevenson. I’d read Treasure Island, of course, and Jekill&Hyde – who doesn’t? – and The Black Arrow had been a childhood favourite. Now another historical novel from the same author, and with a Scottish setting to boot, seemed like a good idea, even though it was printed on flimsy grey paper, in a font so small to imperil one’s eyesight… Still, buy it I did, and after the bookshop, ensconced myself in a nearby tea room, ordered tea and scones, and began to read. 
Right now, I think that all you can find in English is the 
Once upon a time, we had two musicians – a cello and a violin – to provide incidental music from a play.
So, this is my contribution to 
Scribblings 