Sue Limb
Sue Limb (born 1946, Hitchin, Hertfordshire) is a British writer and broadcaster. She studied Elizabethan lyric poetry at Cambridge and then trained in education. She lives on an organic farm near Nailsworth, Gloucestershire.
She is the co-author of a biography of the Antarctic explorer Captain Lawrence Oates. Her work includes novels – many of them for young adults – and a sitcom for ITV television and BBC Radio 4, Up the Garden Path. For Radio 4, she has written a number of comedy series (which pay unusual attention to music and sound-effects): The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere (two series), The Sit Crom (set in the Civil War), Four Joneses and a Jenkins and Alison and Maud; and also Growing Pains (a documentary about ageing), Hilaire Belloc, and Cities (six programmes of literary anthology).[1]
Under the name Dulcie Domum, Limb wrote Bad Housekeeping, a humorous weekly column in The Guardian's Guardian Weekend section between 1988[2] and 2001.[3] Collections of the columns, a feminist novelist's diaries of a rural idyll gone wrong, were republished in book form. The books, reissued by Solidus Press in 2002, are listed below. In 1989, as Domum, Limb coined the term "bonkbuster", a play on "blockbuster" and the verb "to bonk", British slang for sexual intercourse. In 2002 the Oxford English Dictionary recognized this word for the first time, defining it as "a type of popular novel characterized by frequent explicit sexual encounters between the characters." [4] Limb commented on the honour, "It's an unexpected event. People keep telling me I've made my place in history, so I can die happily now."[5]
In 2012 she wrote the Radio 4 series Gloomsbury starring Miriam Margoyles and Alison Steadman.
She was briefly married from 1970 (the first of his five wives) to the historian, Professor Roy Porter.
Works
- Captain Oates, Soldier and Explorer (with Patrick Cordingley), Batsford, 1982, ISBN 0-7134-2693-4
- Up the Garden Path, Transworld, 1984, ISBN 0-370-30595-7
- Love Forty, Transworld, 1986
- The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere, Bantam, 1987, ISBN 0-593-01296-8
- Chicken Mission, Orchard, 1988, ISBN 1-86039-081-1
- Tree Trouble, Orchard, 1988, ISBN 1-85213-096-2
- Love's Labours, Transworld, 1989, ISBN 0-7278-5253-1
- Me Jane, Orchard, 1989, ISBN 1-86039-084-6
- Big Trouble, Orchard, 1990, ISBN 1-85213-097-0
- Dulcie Domum's Bad Housekeeping, Fourth Estate (reissued by Solidus Press 2002), 1990, ISBN 1-872180-27-2
- Sheep's Eyes and Hogwash, Heinemann, 1992, ISBN 0-434-42446-3
- More Bad Housekeeping, Fourth Estate (reissued by Solidus Press 2002), 1992, ISBN 1-85702-151-7
- Come Back, Grandma, Red Fox, 1993, ISBN 0-09-921951-4
- Dulcie Dishes the Dirt, Fourth Estate (reissued by Solidus Press 2002), 1994, ISBN 1-85702-236-X
- Passion Fruit, Heinemann, 1995, ISBN 0-434-00278-X
- Enlightenment, Heinemann, 1997, ISBN 0-434-00280-1
- Dulcie Goes Native, Severn House (reissued by Solidus Press 2002), 1998, ISBN 0-9543377-9-4
- Big and Little, Orchard, 1999, ISBN 1-85213-073-3
- You At The Back Stop Laughing, Beaver Books, 1999, ISBN 0-09-942670-6
- China Lee (reissued as You're Amazing, Mr Jupiter), Orchard, 2004, ISBN 1-85213-031-9
- Girl, 15, Charming But Insane, Bloomsbury, 2004, ISBN 0-7475-7185-6
- Girl (Nearly) 16: Absolute Torture, Bloomsbury, 2005, ISBN 0-7475-7562-2
- Girl 16: Pants on Fire, Bloomsbury, 2006, ISBN 0-7475-8216-5
- Ruby Rogers is a Waste of Space, Bloomsbury, 2006, ISBN 0-7475-8321-8
- Ruby Rogers: Yeah Whatever..., Bloomsbury, 2006, ISBN 978-0-7475-8322-6
- Girl, 15, Flirting for England, Bloomsbury, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7475-8477-3
- Zoe and Chloe: On the Prowl, Bloomsbury, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7475-8272-4
- Ruby Rogers is a Walking Legend, Bloomsbury, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7475-8323-3
- Girl, 16, Five-Star Fiasco, Bloomsbury, 2010
- Chocolate SOS, Bloomsbury, 2012
References
- ↑ Biography at Sue Limb's website (undated). Accessed: 2007-09-01.
- ↑ The Guardian, 27 November 2004.Accessed: 2007-09-01.
- ↑ Bloomsbury Press. Accessed 2007-09-01.
- ↑ The Telegraph, 18 February 2002 Accessed 2007-11-11.
- ↑ Sydney Morning Herald, 19 June 2002 Accessed 2007-11-11.
External links
- Sue Limb's website
- A Bad Housekeeping column by Limb (as 'Dulcie Domum') in Guardian Weekend, The Guardian, London, 31 March 2001
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