Alan Bradley
Alan Bradley
book grandmother great-love
I grew up in a very British family who had been transplanted to Canada, and my grandmother's house was filled with English books. I was a very early reader, so I was really brought up being surrounded with piles of British books and British newspapers, British magazines. I developed a really great love of England.
children father book
I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren's hands.
fun book character
I had thought for years, probably 30 or 40 years, that it would be a lot of fun to try my hand at a classic English mystery novel... I love that form very much because the reader is so familiar with all of the types of characters that are in there that they already identify with the book.
book eight heaven
As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No ... eight days a week.
thinking long-ago oatmeal
I had long ago discovered that when a word or formula refused to come to mind the best thing for it was to think of something else: tigers for instance or oatmeal. Then when the fugitive word was least expecting it I would suddenly turn the full blaze of my attention back onto it catching the culprit in the beam of my mental torch before it could sneak off again into the darkness.
cultivating
Anyone who knew the word slattern was worth cultivating as a friend.
thinking politics lists
The spectrum on the list is very broad. It includes leftists who think that whiny liberals should be stuffed in a sack and drowned.
politics fervent
Liberals have always been the most fervent Imperialists.
daughter father long-ago
It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest, and I had long ago become accustomed to being called 'Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it.
interesting enemy brain
I am often thought of as being remarkably bright, and yet my brains, more often than not, are busily devising new and interesting ways of bringing my enemies to sudden, gagging, writhing, agonizing death.
thinking sky doors
Whenever I'm out-of-doors and find myself wanting to have a first-rate think, I fling myself down on my back, throw my arms and legs out so that I look like an asterisk, and gaze at the sky.
flattery
To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.
spoiled spoiled-brat brat
Compared with my life Cinderella was a spoiled brat.
careers long people
During a long career in TV broadcasting, I spent a lot of time contributing to other people's creations.