Wishing all my readers a very happy festive season As the year draws to a close, I’m focusing on my favourite books of 2025. I’d like to highlight the following five books which I’ve really enjoyed reading. This is a rather random collection of fiction and non-fiction; some were published in 2025 whilst others are…
Tag: Jessica Duchen
Playing to Your Strengths
I haven’t written many guest posts over the past six years, which is the length of time that I have been running this blog. There’s no particular reason for this, but when the renowned writer, author, journalist, and presenter, Jessica Duchen, kindly invited me to pen a post for her excellent blog, it was an…
Jessica Duchen in conversation with Melanie Spanswick
My Music Talk interview guest today is music journalist and author Jessica Duchen. We met at Steinway Hall in London earlier this week to chat about her career. Jessica was born in London, where her parents settled after leaving South Africa. She regrets that she can’t remember her encounter with JR Tolkein in Oxford at…
Alicia’s Gift: the Concert of the Novel
This splendid concert featured a narrator and a pianist or words and music. What a wonderful combination, and one which will no doubt appeal to both music and literary lovers everywhere. Alicia’s Gift; the Concert of the Novel was performed by acclaimed author and music critic Jessica Duchen (who narrated) and prize-winning pianist Viv McLean. Alicia’s Gift…
Hungarian Dances at The Musical Museum
Finding a new venue is always an exciting discovery. I had never before visited The Musical Museum at Kew Bridge in West London, but it is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year. In addition to housing some interesting musical artifacts it also hosts a concert series as well as many other activities. The Museum’s concert…