A memoir of my former self: a life in writing

Part I: Once upon a life : On the one hand ; I once stole a book ; Exam fever ; Where do stories come from? ; Persons from Porlock ; Which bits of English history are my history? ; Blot, erase, delete ; Last morning in Al Hamra ; Night visions ; The palace revolutionary ; Meeting my stepfather ; Wicked parents in fairy tales ; A memoir of my former self ; Dreaming of pork and porn ; A doctor's diaries ; Holy disorders ; Written on our bodies ; Every part of my body hurts ; Once upon a life ; The princess myth ; On grief

Part II: Writing in the dark : Outrage merchant: Prick up your ears ; Mad, bad and dangerous: Fatal attraction ; Good clean violence: RoboCop ; Sixties survivors: Withnail and I ; Not by bread alone: Babette's feast and Barfly ; Fallen angels: Wings of desire ; When sex began: Scandal ; Bittersweet treat: When Harry met Sally ; Unsentimental education: A short film about love ; Natural disaster: Sweetie ; Taking the Mickey: Wild orchid ; Happily ever after: Romauld et Juliette ; Don't take the vicar: Wild at heart ; In the company of savages: Goodfellas ; Polite young things: Metropolitan

Part III: Turn the page : Not "everybody's Dear Jane": on Jane Austen ; Killer children: on Gitta Sereny ; Figures in a landscape: on Annie Proulx ; Conservative rebel: on Rebecca West ; A past recaptured: on Sybille Bedford ; Getting through: on John McGahern ; The right to life: on capital punishment ; Fashion queen: on Marie Antoinette ; Religion and the decline of magic: on Keith Thomas ; A book of the world: on V.S. Naipaul

Part IV: The Reith lectures : The day is for leaving ; The Iron Maiden ; Silence grips the town ; Can these bones live? ; Adaptation

Part V: The moon was a tender crescent : Bryant Park: a memoir ; Real books in imaginary houses ; A life of Biggles ; Nostalgic for disorder ; No passport required ; "How I became a writer" stories ; Female role novels ; Women over fifty: the Invisible Generation ; Elizabeth Jane Howard ; If the glance of a woman can sour cream ; At first sniff ; The joys of stationery ; The books I will never write ; On the right track ; The other king ; Anne Boleyn: witch, bitch, temptress, feminist ; How I cam to write Wolf Hall ; Unfreezing antique feeling ; A letter to Thomas More, knight ; Royal bodies ; Touching hands with the lost.