User blog:Robin Patterson/Sophie Kinsella (author)

Some fiction-writers clearly love London. Sophie Kinsella lives there and wrote the following on pages 19-20 of her novel My not so Perfect Life:


 * "As long as I can remember, I've wanted out of Somerset. I've wanted London. I never had boy bands on my bedroom wall. I had the Tube map. Posters of the London Eye and the Gherkin.
 * "The first internship I managed to scrape was in Birmingham, and that's a big city too. It's got the shops, the glamour, the buzz . . . but it's not London. It doesn't have that London-ness that makes my heart soar. The skyline. The history. Walking past Big Ben and hearing it chime, in real life. Standing in the same Tube stations that you've seen in a million films about the Blitz. Feeling that you're in one of the best cities in the world, no question, hands down. Living in London is like living in a movie set, from the Dickensian back streets to the glittering tower blocks to the secret garden squares. You can be anyone you want to be.
 * "...I live in a top-ten city. Living in London is something that people all over the world would love to do, and now I'm here. And that's why I don't care if my commute is the journey from hell and my bedroom is about three feet square. I'm here."