Natasha Solomons
I live with my husband, David, in rural Dorset.
As well as novels, I write screenplays with David, and I’m trying to finish a PhD on eighteenth-century poetry.
From the moment when the first daffodils appear, I can be found in the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden. It has no electricity and I listen to a wind-up radio for entertainment – but this is my favourite place to write. My closest neighbour is a rather bumptious pheasant who comes to sit on the step and check up on me.
Bonjour Natasha,
Je parle très mal anglais, c’est pourquoi je vous écrit en français. Je suis la correctrice de “Jack Rosenblum” pour le Livre de Poche, et je voulais juste vous dire merci pour ce talentueux roman qui rend heureux !
Hélène
love the book .Can play jack.? please
I am diecting “Damers vision” a new community play based on Lord Milton flooding the old village of Milton Abbas it will be performed at st James Church Milton Abbas Milton Abbas
on the 20.nov 2011 at 7.30 before the Arch Bishop of Sherborne You will be most welcome .
Mike Roberts stage name (Robert Micheals)
Dear Natasha,
I very much enjoyed reading your novel, which I found both touching and funny. I will at some point try to make a Baumtorte, although the recipe is quite a challenge and reminds me of the recipes my grand-mother used to write down for me.
You might be happy (at least I hope so!) to hear that Mr Rosenblum’s List will actually be included in the PhD thesis I am currently trying to finish. So good luck for your PhD, and please also keep on writing fiction!
Best wishes,
Anna
Hi Natasha
Just started reading your book.. Mr Rosenblum.
Only on chapter 3 but love it ! cant put it down.
Danielle
My sister Ann Welch has just written to you about your marvellous book about Tyneham as she was stationed there as a WAF during the war. She is now 89, but very much ‘with it’ and just loved your book. She posted it to your publishers & I do hope you get it. She would love a reply!
Thank you so much for replying to my sister. She is still very full of stories about her amazing time in the WAAF’s, and was on duty on ‘D Day’ when they used Bernard Lovell’s new radar system. She tells me that there is a statue or some such on Bullbarrow to commemorate this. She was based in Tyneham for about 2 years, but when the army took it over they were moved to Swanage & had to go to work in Worth Matravers by army lorry. She was based in Wyke for her first 2 years & this took about a week of train travel to get there from her home in Broadstone! Best wishes Sally
I just finished “The House at Tyneford” and enjoyed it immensely. In the acknowledgments, it says the viola concerto can be heard by visiting your web site, but I don’t see any way to access it.
Hi Cindy,
I’m really glad you enjoyed the book — the music should display in your browser on the front page of the website. Click on the album cover for ‘The Novel in the Viola’.
x
Dear Natasha,
May I join the many others in thanking you for Mr. R. As it happens, I was on retreat at Gaunts House near Wimborne last weekend, so I travelled over to Bulbarrow and had a quiet peek at Ibberton; I did of course see The Old Smithy, but tried to look nonchalant as I passed, so that those inside were not put off by a gawking admirer.
My wife and I were wondering how some of the little jokes travelled into other tongues, when your work was translated into European and other languages. For example, it is easy for us in English to enjoy “Mr. Rose-in-bloom” but this might not get across in translation. How did your translators overcome this, or did these jolly elements need to be excised from overseas versions of Mr. R?
We look forward to following your writing career as well as admiring your academic one from a distance.
Blessings, Richard
Have just finished Mr. Rosenblum’s List; one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. I shall now seek out your other works.
Congratulations.
Trevor
Ms. Solomons-
I am still weeping having just finished your amazingingly beautiful “The House at Tyneford.” What skill and respect you demonstrate in the descriptions of emotions, physicality, nature and mood-I was there, smelling, feeling and aching throughout this extraordinary story. I’ve been “near” the ghost village on one of my trips to England and was curious about the circumstances under which it had evolved.
Such joy to be moved so completely by someone’s writing!
I am in awe.
Johanna Reinke
Hi Johanna,
Thanks so much! I’m secretly thrilled I made you cry.
xx
n
Thanks Trevor!
Dear Natasha,
My Book Group and I have recently finished Mr R’s List and I wanted to write to you to let you know how very much we all enjoyed this book. Usually the book discussion element of the evening can be as short as 30/40mins but we sat and laughed at Mr R’s eccentricities for almost 2 hours! I have recommended the book to two other groups and we are planning a ‘Book Group on Tour’ night out to watch the film when it is released; we’re all excited to see just how steep Bulbarrow Hill is! I now intend to seek out your other titles and judging from the comments above, I have a treat in store.
Thank you very much for such a wonderful read and very best wishes for your future endeavours.
Warm Regards, Kersten.
I’ve been passing the word on House of Tyneford to everyone, especially at my local library. Came home with Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English and can’t wait to get started on it.
Thank you so much for your wonderful book.
Gloria
Dear Ms. Solomons:
I just finished “Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English” and was very moved, because of the similarities with my own family.
I myself was a child of Jack and Sadie, who were in my life were Ray and Jadwiga. Ray was the American son of Polish immigrant steelworkers and Jadwiga, my mother was a Polish Catholic from Bialystok, taken by Russians at the beginning of the war to a Siberian work camp. When Germany attacked Russia, she was sent to the Middle East were she joined a faction of the Polish army and later met my father, an American, at the battle of Monte Cassino in Italy. Many members of my mother’s family died in the war.
She came to America as his wife but never really adapted. We children were raised in the old European way by her and the images of Sadie baking late into the night to quell her sorrows was very moving to me as my mother also had an old cook book with memories. She told me stories of prewar Europe and the food her aunt made and how beautiful Poland was before it was destroyed. Because of her East European ethnicity and heavy accent, myself and my three siblings always felt different than other typical American families.
And just like Jack, my parents also changed their Polish surname in the 1950s to Americanize. Therefore, like Sadie, I feel that my heritage was lost in the post war craze to fit in. I am not related to anyone else who shares my adoptive last name.
Thank you so much for writing this book: my parents are both gone now (they would in their 90s) and this book reminded me so much of them.
I just finished Tyneford and though it was slow at times, I was sad to have it end. It is so charmingly written in this day and age. My question, Could you write a sequel? I am curious as to how Alice and David lived. Did they have children, etc.?