That was the way to go in those days because political prisoners were placed under house arrest and life could be very difficult. Your fourth book is As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh– Susan Sontag’s collected diaries and notebooks. This is indeed what Levy encourages us to do through the character of Sofia – to suspend our systematic beliefs and prejudices, to question the world around us as Sofia does. The two things to say about this in terms of mothers in literature is that she is a sad, impoverished, genteel mother living at a time when the father isn’t there – so this must have been quite transgressive – and she is just trying to keep things going, but not doing very well.

Ballard argues the only kind of psychology equipped to survive the twenty-first century will be the psychopath – I’m guessing that Ballard needed this tennis coach in his pristine whites to exist in something that resembles the realist novel (albeit with the atmosphere of a Delvaux painting) because Crawford’s function is to be convincing enough to ventriloquise and embody Ballard’s own radical arguments. Sofia is floating through her life, with as much or as little control as the jellyfish – medusas in Spanish – which drive the tourists away from the white-hot beach. I could say that it was these years that were the most self-sacrificing, and not the years in our nuclear family unit.Is that why she has so many mysterious symptoms, is that why she uses illness as a way to gather love and attention to her? That play has sort of become a classic and that’s done all over the world and I think it’s probably my most successful theatre piece.

It has gone straight into my top five ever and will take pride of place with the other four in my downstairs loo. Not many books strike a chord, but for some of our book club, Wine Women and Words, Ho Milk made them laugh and cry with recognition. And then we romp through Showalter’s phenomenal book The FemALe mALADy and some of the writing begins to disintegrate as some of the cow’s brain begins to dissolve. This book was open to each individuals own interpretations according to our own past experiences and relationships which was very interesting to discuss. Some of us loved it for its humour and wit whilst others lamented its lack of plot or the author's inability to draw the reader into the characters' lives.The oldest star is about 13 billion years old but the stars on my screen saver are two years old and were made in China.

Her mother, Rose, becomes increasingly dependent upon Sofia over the years and although Sophia becomes increasingly put upon, she describes her love for her mother as being like an axe because it cuts so deep. The jellyfish does not have blood or any solid skeletal structure; its body is divided into three main parts. I also had to slope off to read the Jacobeans, like Webster, with his very dense, violent, seething language. It requires skill, time, dedication and empathy to create a home that everyone enjoys and that functions well. Ballard was once asked why so many female doctors turned up in his novels – he said it was because he had scientific training.The writing was unfolding as a mix of realism and modernism and this was creating an uncanny effect. A man looks at portrait photos by US photographer Bruce Gilden in the exhibition 'Masters of Photography' at the photokina in Cologne, Germany. Sophie’s relationship with her invalid mother, Rose, is explored directly, as they seek answers to Rose’s intermittent ability to walk, and also through Sophia’s other relationships with her estranged father, Rose’s doctor, and Sophia’s friends and and lovers.