By A N Donaldson author of Prospero's Mirror

Last time we had a global depression the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to buck people up by announcing: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself". The trouble is that fear itself can be very frightening. And,...

By Jennie Jordan author of Flying High

WANT to see what cabin crew look like out of uniform? Go to your local cinema to see Pedro Almodovar's I'm So Excited. When I went in London at least three quarters of the audience was clearly crew. Leggy girls...

By Fiona Pearse author of The I.T. Girl

Sometimes, caught at the coffee dock, a man will lower his voice and ask me: Why do YOU think there are so few women in IT?

It's a good question. The numbers of women in medicine and the...

By Neil Simpson author of Benedict Cumberbatch: Behind the Scenes.

IT'S pretty much the best of times and the worst of time for upper class actors in England these days.
On the one hand there's loads of work going round. Period dramas like Downton Abbey and...

By Jim Beviglia, author of Pump It Up: Elvis Costello's 100 Best Songs.

In the aftermath of Margaret Thatcher's death last week, those who didn't feel too sentimental about her time in power looked to an Elvis Costello song almost 25 years old to speak for them....

By John Frye, author of The Secessionist.

The American Civil War produced many stories, most of them of battles, heroism, and the overcoming of great odds. It also produced its share of offbeat schemes and political maneuvers. Perhaps one of the strangest of these concerns the founding of...

By Anna Selby, author of Water Secrets The Simplest Way to Health and Beauty.

It's National Water Day this Friday so maybe this is a good moment to think about this wet stuff and why it's so important to us. So why? Perhaps because it's synonymous with purity...

By Victor J. Fehrenbach, author of Out of the Blue.

The clock is ticking.

I was reminded of this stark reality early Sunday morning on 10 February when I awakened to the news that a dear friend and personal hero, chief warrant officer Charlie Morgan, lost her long...

By Carol Martin-Sperry, author of Good Sex, Bad Sex, No Sex.

Why are boys apparently more assertive and confident than girls? Young women seem to have more issues with self-esteem than young men, they need approval and affirmation from an early age. Boys on the whole are more...

By Brian Hanna, author of Darkness Visible: Hitchcock's Greatest Film.

Fat, ugly man falls in love with beautiful girl and reacts badly when rejected. It's one of the oldest clichés in the world and the version where he is not rejected is commonly filed under Beauty And The...

By Anne Hjelle, author of Skin Deep.

"What happened to your face?"

As a victim of a brutal mountain lion attack in which half my face was ripped off, I fully expected this question to become commonplace. People are naturally curious. They can't help but stare. But,...

By Roderick Easdale author of Wally Hammond: Gentleman & Player

When Alastair Cook made his record 23rd test century in England's recent test series in India, Wally Hammond's name briefly reappeared in the cricketing press. Hammond had set the record at 22, later matched by Colin Cowdrey, Geoff...

By Rab MacWilliam author of The Greatest: Scotland's Best 11

There was a time - and it now feels about as long ago as Bannockburn - when Scotland was regarded as the breeding ground for some of the world's finest footballers.

Denis Law, Jim Baxter, Kenny Dalglish,...

By Ian Barker the author of The Instant Guide to Android

If early forecasts are anything to go by the nation looks set to go tablet mad this Christmas. No, we're not talking pharmaceuticals here but tablet computers. Those sleek, shiny devices that look like an overgrown mobile...

By James Goss author of The Race Of Scorpions (A Lady Serpent Egyptian Murder Story)

Ninety years ago this month, the tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in the Valley of the Kings. Instantly, Tutmania swept around the world. A decade later, the dead pharaoh arrived in Hollywood...

By Amy Wilson author of Relationship Status

Your alarm goes off at 6.30am; it's black dark and bucketing with rain outside.

If only you didn't have to get up and go to work, if only you were in the Caribbean... If only you were married to someone...

By Emma Lee-Potter author of White Christmas

The Christmas lights are twinkling in Oxford Street, the new John Lewis Christmas ad is melting hearts and the glossy magazines are stuffed full of turkey recipes.

Yes, the countdown to Christmas 2012 has begun - and so...

By Peter Chianca author of Glory Days: Springsteen's Greatest Albums

Let's face it, it's one thing to sell out stadiums decades into your career, like the Rolling Stones are sure to do if they trot out their rumored 50th anniversary tour next year. But it's another thing to...

By Paul Turner author of Insanely Doomed: Why Apple Will Crash Without Steve Jobs

Six months ago, I published a short e-book called 'Insanely Doomed: Why Apple Will Crash Without Steve Jobs'. The timing turned out to about as smart as the maps app on the iPhone 5...

By Richard Foreman author of Warsaw and A Hero of Our Time.

There seems to be an increasingly alarming trend nowadays for some people to consider that the story of the Second World War was the story of the Holocaust. They would perhaps mention...