Mortimer

My earliest reading memoryWhen I was in junior school I used to read every night in bed before going to sleep. I had a little bookcase in my bedroom that I filled with the Biggles adventures by WE Johns and Agatha Christie novels. My mum was happy to buy me books. She always said that a house without books is a house without a soul. The initial appeal of these books was that they were short, but they took me to some wonderful places and added a splash of excitement to my life.My favourite book growing upI was around 10…

A pig will be named after Bob Mortimer’s debut novel, The Satsuma Complex, as the comedian’s book has been announced as the winner this year’s Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction.The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer.Mortimer, who found fame as one half of Reeves and Mortimer alongside Vic Reeves, said he was “really chuffed” to have won the award. “I still have no idea if I can actually write but this award gives me fresh hope,” he added.The Satsuma Complex tells the story of legal assistant Gary Thorn,…

When my mother died in 2010 at the age of 52, she left behind two teenage daughters, a devoted husband, innumerable friends and an archive of beautifully written diaries chronicling nearly every year of her life from the age of 25 until her final days. My sister and I were aware of this growing collection throughout our childhood; her past selves were stacked neatly at the bottom of the living room bookcase, preserved in their various jackets of worn leather or patterned fabrics. “These diaries have been the only constant…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeSally Hawkins is stepping away from the role of Mrs Brown for the third instalment in the live-action Paddington franchise: Paddington in Peru.The 47-year-old British actor played the foster mother of Paddington, the wife of Henry Brown (Hugh Bonneville), and the mother of Judy Brown (Madeleine Harris) and Jonathan Brown (Samuel Joslin) across the first and second films released in…

Gary Thorn is in the middle of investigating a serious criminal case in south London involving police corruption, domestic violence, possibly even murder, when he stops in the street to speak to a passing squirrel. He tells the squirrel what he’s planning to do next and the creature, as ventriloquised by Gary, tries to talk him out of it. “I would think around that decision a bit deeper than you obviously have,” it says.This is how the comedian Bob Mortimer writes a crime novel: with squirrel interludes, recurring duck…

“Spectacular talent” Maddie Mortimer has won the Desmond Elliott prize for her “incredibly inventive” novel Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies.Mortimer was announced as the winner of the prize, which is given for a debut novel published in the UK and Ireland, at a ceremony in London this evening.Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies was inspired by Mortimer’s mother, who died of cancer in 2010, and focuses on the character of Lia and the shapeshifting cancer inside her body. Moving between Lia’s past and present, the book is a look…

Source: Joseph Keller / iMore The upcoming Apple TV+ show The New Look will reportedly now star John Malkovich, Emily Mortimer, and Claes Bang after the trio signed on for the drama series. The Apple TV+ show, which already has Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams involved, will be led by Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche. Todd A. Kessler handles writing and will also executive produce and direct the project that "is set against the World War II Nazi Occupation of Paris when Coco Chanel's (Binoche) reign as the world's…