Saturday 13 March 2010: Norwich. How wonderful life can be ! Especially when as a a writer you agonise for forty odd years about whether a book is worth publishing - then get a letter like the one I received today ..... ' I loved your book,' wrote Auriel Mims from an address in Norfolk, 'which is almost a cruel thing to say when it takes you into such a world of human suffering - but it was funny too.'
The book in question is of course my newly published ' Hostage Handbook,' which is a transcript of the secret shorthand diaries I managed to keep hidden from my guards while a hostage in China in the late 1960s. I kept the originals in a deed box at my bank for forty odd years, wondering whether to publish them intermingled with Reflections on the experience from the present - but I repeatedly decided against publication since I felt it might seem unduly egotistical to publish a warts-and-all verbatim account of the experience, having written a fast book in six weeks on my release in 1969 called 'Hostage in Peking.'
So this lovely comment today vindicated those instincts at long last...and they augmented another similar comment received yesterday from one, Penny Miller, a lovely lady who came to the book's launch party at the Book Hive in London Street Norwich about six weeks ago. I ran into Penny outside a Norwich supermarket by chance yesterday and she very kindly made similar very positive comments about the book that warmed this writer's heart. She said she was greatly 'enjoying it' then felt immediately a bit remiss for saying such a thing about the story of two years in solitary confinement as a hostage. But I reassured Penny that was the best thing she could have said because I am sure every writer wishes to give a reader some sense of the joy of life, even with all its ups and downs. But most importantly Auriel Mims and Penny had sensed the deepest essence of the book which sets out to demonstrate how we must each find our own inner peace deep inside ourselves before we can expect to live in a peaceful world. And it was being forced to do this as a hostage which set me on the path of discovery which I am still following - which in a way, as I say in the book, was a great delayed-action privilege. Inside this morning's letter was a card with the address of a website on it http://www.wopg.org/ and on the reverse side it had printed: 'It is not the world that needs peace; it is people. When people in the world are at peace within, the world will be at peace.'
I have't visited the site yet, but I am going to right now as soon as I finish this post. .. And why don't you the same as soon as you finishing reading it.
The name of Prem Rawat was mentioned in connection with the site and I am looking forward to reading him. Because what has come out of today's letter is precisely the reason why I wrote the book. So I send love and thanks to Penny and Auriel and will allow a small warm glow of joy to burn even brighter inside as a result of these experiences of the past two days. More details of the book can be seen on the publisher's website http://www.tagmanpress.co.uk/

Saturday, 6 March 2010: The national publication date for The Hostage Handbook has just been set for Thursday 29 April and a London launch party is planned, around that date, possibly at one of the branches of the Daunts Bookshop chain, in Chelsea or Marylebone High Street. There will be readings from the book, a question and answer session and signings of the Hostage Handbook and copies of my novels Saigon, Peking, Tokyo Bay. A glass of wine and snacks will be on offer. To purchase advance copies of the book or request review copies, please email Kirsty Fielding at KFielding@cle.co.uk
Meantime my next public engagement is an after-dinner talk at the Sherigham Museum Trust on Wednesday 24 March. Its title is: "The World Will Only Know Peace When We Each Find Inner Peace Within Ourselves." The theme arises from the publication of my new book The Hostage Handbook which is a transcript with up to date commenatries of my secret shorthand diaries kept during two years as a hostage in solitary confinement in China. Being held alone cut off from the world in a hostile country for two years forced me to begin learning the importance of getting to understand how our individual inner life profoundly influences the world outside us.