Book club: Q&A with Penelope Lively - author of How It All Began

You were honoured by the Queen in the most recent New Year's honours - I think you have a CBE. What was that like and what did it mean to you?

Do you set out to write a book on a different theme each time, or do you think the same themes have preoccupied you throughout your career?

I read somewhere that you don't approve of people reading on kindles. A lot of us on here are very attached to our kindles! What d'you think is wrong with them? (You can't alter the font size in a book!)

Why do you think novels have tended to focus on young people, and marriage plots? Do you think as people live longer we will get more novels about older people?

I think it was Samuel Johnson who said, 'nobody ever wrote except for money" (or words to that effect). Did you expect to make money from writing when you started out? Did you succeed?

Has having children been a help or a hinderance with writing? Did you get going when they were young?

Which is your favourite novel of the ones that you've written?

Do you feel that there are any that were/are unfairly underrrated or neglected?

I found How It All Began surprisingly funny. Does the humour just keep breaking out or do you think carefully about adding in humour in?

Really pleased to receive a free copy of 'The Thread' by Victoria Hislop and given the awful weather I intend to spend the weekend reading it..

Delighted to receive free copy..... took it on holiday with me and thoroughly enjoyed it...the book and the holiday. Now passed it onto husband and daughter no 1 next in the queue!

I will definitely get 'How it All Began' because I read 'Oleander Jacaranda' and absolutely loved it. I decided to do an A level in my forties because I'd only taken 'O' levels at school (though went on to do Radiography), and Oleander was one of my books. I loved It!! Penelope, you ran headlong into General de Gaulle on the landing in your Egyptian residence as a child. he was in his bathrobe with his bathroom bag clutched in his hand. It's an image that has always stuck in my mind. By the way i passed it with an 'A' grade which I was so chuffed about! Very best wishes to you.

A question for Penelope Lively - what comes first, the plot or the characters?

How It All Began is beautifully structured, with all the stories spinning away from each other. Do you have to work hard on the architecture of a book before you start writing? Do you always know where you're going to end up?

Are you still inspired by the same writers you were when you were younger? Is there anyone you aimed to write like, or did your own voice come naturally?

There is a powerful theme in the book of stories teaching people the really valuable things in life, and especially how to put yourself in other people's shoes. Is this something you personally believe about novels and do you worry that young people are reading less because of so many other distractions? if they are, do you think that will affect the way they empathise with each other?

I thought Henry was a brilliant character - pretty awful until he becomes a sad figure at the end. Do you think men generally find ageing gracefully, submitting to the loss of their power, more difficult than women?

You have written a fari few novels now - do you still find it easy to have ideas for new books? And do you approach the start of a novel with as much enthusiasm as you always did?

I loved the character of Charlotte - that mixture of fierce independence and high intelligence and physical pain, which she can't deny - and I wondered if she was a character you could have written at any other time of your life?

First of all a big thank you to Gransnet for my free copy of 'How it all Began', what a wonderful book, I just couldn't put it down. It was a true delight to read and I have now passed it on to my mother. The book is beautifully written and from the first page you are quickly drawn into the lives of the characters, I really liked Charlotte, Rose and Anton. It is a book I will keep and read again.

My first job out of secretarial college was at the Institute of Historical Research, oh how I recognise Henry. Lots of the famous, in those days, names came in and out. Of course PL's husband was a history don, so she has got it absolutely spot on. Takes me right back. Moon Tiger is still my favourite though.

Just finished the book and enjoyed it immensely. Thank you for some very pleasant hours reading it in the sunshine. No questions but more Penelope Lively for me.

Mine is a paperback edition. I have finished it and enjoyed it thoroughly.

I still haven't had a copy!

I am really enjoying this book! I missed my chance of a "hard" copy so downloaded it and Penelope Lively is every bit as good as I remembered from Family Album and a book I read years ago called, I think, The Road to Litchfield. There is so much in her books that resonates with people of our age and she uses language so well.

Thanks Gransnet for the copy of this book. It was such a lovely surprise, so smart in its hard back and its pretty dust jacket. And what was inside was just as good. I have just been doing a course on creative writing (yes, another wannabe) and have been thinking about point of view and how authors get inside a character's head and give the character a unique voice. It was good fun to concentrate not only on the story but on how Penelope Lively manages to give each of her characters a particular way of 'speaking' in their internal dialogue. Jeremy always finding a justification for his bad behaviour, and two-timing his mistress with his wife (very clever), Stella never knowing her own mind, Charlotte thinking alternatively about her past and her painful present. Actually I thought the description of pain was very well done.

Another thing that we 'learned' in our creative writing course was that, in a conventional novel, the 'initiating incident' that sets the ball rolling, happens about 25 pages in. By that time we usually know about the main characters, the setting, time and place etc. But good authors are free to break the rules. Here PL puts the incident right at the very start of the book, before we even know who the other characters are going to be. It's very entertaining the way the story unfolds.

I'm looking forward to reading more Penelope Lively!