Sara Sheridan

I have an ambivalent relationship with Margaret Thatcher. She came to power in May 1979 - a month before my 11th birthday. I was far too young to have developed a great deal of political awareness. I remember it, though - my mother excited at the dinner table because Britain had its first female prime minister.

Living in Edinburgh, I consider myself particularly lucky - we have the biggest book festival in the world, a plethora of fascinating libraries and museums, and some of the greatest architecture in Europe.

We don't live in a society that has genuine equality, and every woman we know has experienced that.

Reticence was clearly a national characteristic, even if the other person spoke French.

Mirabelle sat down, dropping into the cushions like a ball being caught in a large leather glove._

Social and cultural history is often comprised of whatever diaries and letters remain and that is down to chance and wide open to interpretation.

They should be taking bonuses from bankers, not library books from schoolchildren. What kind of society are we building?

Archive material is a fabulous starting point - individual documents are like signposted roads, heading to a variety of intriguing possibilities.

He finds himself bored by the shenanigans of highly spirited young men. Their concerns reside somewhere between balder and dash.

Escapers were the cream of the crop.

I wondered if that was what I was doing myself _ caring so much about something that was so long gone that I was only propping it up.

People are so different in wartime. No one gets to be ordinary. Not really.

Afternoon drinkers shifted in the gloom as if they sensed new blood.

She picked up the stout and took a sip. It slid down her throat like silk.

As a historical novelist, there is very little I like more than spending time sorting through boxes of old letters, diaries, maps, trinkets, and baubles.

I'm a library user and I just don't hoard books. To me, they're for sharing.

Books exist for me not as physical entities with pages and binding, but in the province of my mind.

The library is a symbol of freedom.