Chair Person
Chair Person is included in the book Stopping for a Spell.
The old armchair has been sitting in front of the television for as long as Simon and Marcia can remember. But it has never been very comfortable, and is now so old and worn that Mum and Dad decide it is time to replace it with a new one. It will make a good seat for the guy on bonfire night.
But the chair itself has other ideas. To the amazement and growing alarm of the family the discarded chair takes on a life of its own and Chair Person, as he calls himself, settles in as an uninvited guest. He speaks oddly and is terribly clumsy, but at first seems friendly, so that the children do their best to make him feel at home. But soon they regret their hospitality as Chair Person's behaviour gets worse and worse. His manners are appalling and his demands outrageous. No one seems able to control him. The whole family is plunged into chaos and the search for a solution becomes increasingly desperate – perhaps Auntie Christa will be able to help?
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Diana Wynne Jones
Long before fantasy became mainstream, Diana Wynne Jones was quietly rewriting its rules—building magical worlds that felt both whimsical and wise, mischievous and deeply human. Her stories didn’t just sparkle with enchantment; they carried a quiet intelligence that dared young readers to think deeper, look sideways, and always expect the unexpected.
Born in London in 1934, Jones grew up amid wartime evacuations and an often-chaotic household—experiences that would later inform the strange, shifting families and fractured realities in her fiction. She studied English at Oxford under tutors like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, though she later remarked she learned more by not imitating them. Instead, she carved out her own voice: lyrical but grounded, funny but never flippant, magical yet steeped in emotional truth.
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