Wife in the North

Judith O’Reilly’s Wife in the North blog has become a self help manual for my family in our plan to co-locate in London and rural Northumberland.

Like O’Reilly’s husband I’m going to split my time between the two locations making regular use of the East Coast Mainline while my wife and three kids enjoy the benefit of a rural life in the north. Or not depending how literally you take Wife in the North.

Within days of launching Wife in the North O’Reilly caught the attention of Tom Watson, Iain Dale and Andrew Sullivan. Viking Penguin offered a book deal. The book was published last week.

Blog-to-book is becoming a popular route into publishing. But Wife in the North stands up in its own right largely because of O’Reilly’s candour and the quality of her writing. The site is damn site better read than your average blog and the book is a league apart from usual line-up of bookshop paperbacks.