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We don't want to dwell too much on convulsive world events - not because they don't concern us but because everyone is doing it and probably doing it much better than we could. But how could we ''not'' point out that George Orwell's ''newspeak'' classic ''1984'' is, as we write, back in [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/24/george-orwell-1984-sales-surge-kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts Amazon's bestseller list]. Alternative facts are not facts. And thank you, George Orwell, for warning us.

It's been great to see the film of [[A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness]] doing so well at the box office and it reminded us that the original outline for the story was written by the wonderful late Siobhan Dowd, who died of breast cancer in 2007. So we'd like to give a shout out to the [http://siobhandowdtrust.com/ charitable trust] she left behind. The Siobhan Dowd Trust works to give young people the opportunity to read and enjoy literature and it funds some wonderful and worthwhile projects. It's a charity well worth promoting and supporting, if you can.