Dominic Sandbrook talks about the virtues of author Catherine Cookson, who published 104 works before her death in 1998. “She is not cool or trendy. Cookson was sneered at a lot in her lifetime because her readers were the antithesis of the readers usually celebrated by literary critics: predominantly middle-aged and elderly women, often working class. Her books are conservative.”

Sandbrook has produced a biopic for BBC2 on Cookson. (via Prufrock)