n FORMER BBC Breakfast host Louise Minchin has taken her duties seriously as chair of judges at this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction.

‘I was delighted when Kate Mosse [founding director] asked me, because I don’t have to go to bed early now I’m not doing Breakfast,’ she tells me. ‘I read late at night and all the books are well‑thumbed.

‘Books come with me everywhere. In fact, every one of the 16 on the longlist has been dropped in the bath.’ When not reading, Louise is training for her first London Marathon next month.