The Literary Giveaway Blog Hop

The Literary Giveaway Blog Hop  is organised by Judith at Leeswammes' Blog.

The giveaway runs from June 22nd to June 26th 2013 and there are lots of book blogs taking part - check the list lower down this post!

My giveaway is open internationally to countries that The Book Depository delivers free to - check the list here.

The choice of books on offer in my giveaway are:

Journey Into The Past by Stefan Zweig
(read my review)

The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman
(read my review)

The Girl who Fell from the Sky by Simon Mawer

(read my review)

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen

(read my review)

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS NOW ENDED - please see 27th June post for the winner!

I'd love it if you'd like to leave a comment too, with which book you might like to win, or your thoughts if you've read any of these.

The winner will win their choice of one of the titles listed above, and will be drawn at random and contacted as soon as the giveaway ends. 

If I don't hear from the winner within 48 hours a new winner will be selected. 

Linky List:

Leeswammes Ciska's Book Chest The Book Garden Sam Still Reading Ephemeral Digest Curiosity Killed the Bookworm Rikki's Teleidoscope The Things You Can Read (US) Seaside Book Nook The Relentless Reader (US) Under a Gray Sky Blog Exurbanis Candle Beam Book Blog Booklover Book Reviews Books in the Burbs (US) Babyboomerwrites River City Reading (US) Lakeside Musing (N. America) Read Lately (US) The Book Diva's Reads A Place That Does Not Exist Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book (US) A corner of the library Roof Beam Reader The Misfortune of Knowing Girl Vs Bookshelf

heavenali Love at First Book The Little Reader Library The Siren's Tale Musings and Ramblings The Readers Realm (US) Lost Generation Reader Readerbuzz Literary Meanderings Book Clutter Bay State Reader's Advisory Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity Nose in a book Audios & More Laurie Here Mythical Books Books in the City

The Valley of Unknowing - Philip Sington

‘Deceit was dangerous, but the truth was suicidal.’

Bruno Krug is a writer in East Germany.  He is principally known for his novel entitled The Orphans of Neustadt, as well as for his Factory Gate Fables, which portray the country’s working masses. The Valley of Unknowing begins with a discovery by a young journalist in Ireland. Then we are taken into a manuscript produced by Krug, which is now in the hands of this journalist. In this work, Krug recalls the momentous events that shaped his final years in his homeland. He is given an anonymous manuscript to read by his editor Michael Schilling. As he reads it, he discovers that it is brilliant, but that it seems to almost be a sequel to his own very famous work. On discovering that the author is in fact Wolfgang Richter, a younger fellow author, he feels a multitude of emotions. Bruno meets a young musician, Theresa Eden, and an initial longing grows to become something more serious. The relationship will shape the rest of his life.

I love fiction based in Germany, and in particular I find it fascinating to read stories that are based in the former German Democratic Republic. For me, this novel felt authentic and it did not disappoint. The plot is intriguing. The world the author creates is believable. He convincingly brings to life the atmosphere of the state: the secrecy, the fear of being watched and spied upon, needing to take care in your actions. Also the determined people who would keep struggling to try and achieve things, despite shortages of funds or goods – witness Frau Wiegmann and her persistence in trying to get the swimming pool reopened; she ‘battled on like a true socialist heroine: exhorting her followers with visions of the promised land, banishing despair and crushing dissent with her indefatigable energy.’ Similarly, Bruno's persistant yet fruitless pursuit of some toothpaste. And transactions would take place that were never quite openly declared or expressed, just understood enough between those involved.

I enjoyed the comments on the craft of writing fiction that the author was able to express through Bruno’s voice, and further the thoughts on the nature of artistry and creativity under ‘Actually Existing Socialism’ as opposed to the Western world of which the view is that ‘cash was king and the customer was always right.’ Bruno observes ‘how could an artist remain true to his own vision – in effect honest – if he allowed his idea of beauty to be dictated by others? This indifference to Western opinion played well with my ideological overseers, who took it as indicative of loyalty. The truth is that I was afraid of what I might hear.’

One of my favourite passages from the novel involves Bruno’s thoughts which are provoked by Gruna Willy, a man reputed to have once been a border guard, now somewhat of a vagrant wondering the streets. Bruno ponders, ‘To rehearse imaginary conversations on paper is called literature. To do so out loud is called madness.’

Bruno is an interesting, flawed character, this writer and sometime plumber. I could imagine Bruno walking the streets of his town in the GDR, as he often did when his mind was troubled. I accompanied him as he went to the concerts in which Theresa played her viola. The evolving emotions that Bruno feels towards Theresa, and the way in which he gradually comes to a deeper understanding of Richter, is fascinating to read. As Bruno is writing his account in the first person, I really felt his conflicting feelings and his struggles over the best course of action, his fears and anxieties. What would happen, I wondered? The author successfully builds suspense in the storyline as the novel slowly progresses; in one sense I didn't find this a fast-paced read, yet I was always intrigued, always interested in what would happen next, and what fate was in store for Bruno and Theresa. I was enthralled to discover how the decisions Bruno makes would ultimately affect his life.

This is a compelling story of love, risk, writing, fear and betrayal, courage and deception. Philip Sington has drawn on the insights and memories of his wife and her family, who resided in the former GDR, to create a credible, distinctive novel. This author is new to me, but I will look to read his previous novel The Einstein Girl now.

Published by Harvill Secker

Originally reviewed for NewBooks magazine, thanks very much to them for sending this book to read and review.

You can visit the author's website here and follow him on twitter @PhilipSington

Toby's Room - Pat Barker

'Painting numbed the pain; nothing else did.'

It is 1912, and Elinor Brooke is studying art at the Slade School of Art in London under the tutorage of Henry Tonks. There she befriends fellow art student Kit Neville, rather a difficult person, and somewhat of a ladies' man. Elinor's mother and sister are against her independence and her pursuing her studies. Toby, Elinor's brother and her closest friend, is supportive of her endeavours. 

Then the story moves forward to 1917, with Britain at war, and the men away on the battlefields in France. Toby uses his medical experience to help the wounded there. News comes through to the Brooke family that Toby is missing.

Elinor is anxious to seek out the truth about her brother Toby’s death during the war; 'She knew so little. What did 'Missing, Believed Killed' actually mean?' Despite writing several times to Kit in the hope of discovering more information as to how exactly Toby died, she receives no reply. 

Kit Neville then returns from France. Through him the author conveys how the confusing memories and images of war can haunt the mind: 'All sorts of shadowy figures crossed the suburbs of Neville's mind, or crept out of the darkness and pressed in on him.'

Neville's face has been destroyed in the war, and Pat Barker writes with frank realism about the disfigured appearances of the men being treated for facial injuries sustained in battle. She describes what is necessary for us to comprehend the suffering of these men, and the work and techniques of Harold Gillies, the pioneering plastic surgeon at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup, and she depicts the difficulty and pain endured by Neville trying to somehow come to terms with himself as he is now.

Kit is still reluctant to reveal anything more to Elinor about Toby's death, so Elinor turns to her former love Paul Tarrant, another art student, and asks for his help speaking to Kit. She seeks some form of closure regarding Toby, some way to even begin to move on from his death, having been such a key part of her life, and sharing a dark secret. 

The author illustrates how art becomes linked with the surgery being undertaken to reconstruct the damaged faces of the soldiers. A record is being created of those wounded, with Elinor becoming involved in these portraits. I felt moved by the immense courage of the soldiers, and feel that the author writes both authoritatively and compassionately about the mental and physical scars of war. 

The inclusion of real people from this period in history, Henry Tonks and Harold Gillies, adds weight to the authenticity of the story's backdrop, and caused me to read more about them and their work after finishing the novel. 

I was struck at times by the beauty and aptness of the prose; the following passage in particular stood out for me, when relating how Paul views the countryside and weather back home, his impressions all bear the stamp of the war: 

'Everything he saw, everything he felt, seemed to be filtered through his memories of the front line, as if a think wash had been laid over his perceptions of this scene. Columns of sleety rain marched across the fields while, in the distance, grey clouds massed for another attack.'

I felt for Paul as he seeks to find a place for himself in Elinor's heart, wondering if this is a lost cause.

A fascinating, intelligent and beautifully written historical portrait of people and relationships, war and destruction, love and loss, under the shadow and impact of the First World War.

In Toby's Room, the author revisits characters that featured in her earlier novel Life Class, though I would add that a reading of that is not necessary to understand and enjoy this novel. 

Published by Hamish Hamilton on 16th August 2012.

Thanks very much to the publisher for kindly sending a review copy of this novel.

Heft - Liz Moore

'I would remind myself of how many people there were like me, & how many people fall into the despair of loneliness...'

This is a review where I have to be careful not to be over the top, because, plainly said, I loved this book so, so much.

Arthur Opp, at around 550 pounds, is extremely overweight, and he hasn't left his large home in Brooklyn in ten years. He was an academic, but no longer works, supporting himself through money from a father he never sees, and ordering everything from food to books online and having it all delivered to his door. He tells us his home was once 'very lovely inside and out', but has now fallen 'into a sort of haunted disrepair', and he hasn't seen the upper floors in a decade. His only real friendship, since his friend Marty passed away, is an infrequent correspondence with an ex-student of his, Charlene Turner, and the novel commences with a frank letter that he is composing to her. 

Kel Keller is a talented baseball player in his last year of highschool. His mother, Charlene, wants him to consider college, but he is not academically minded and is instead aiming for a place with a major league team straight out of school. His life isn't the seemingly easy, privileged existence of his fellow students at Pells Landing. He lives in Yonkers, and commutes to the prestigious school everyday, having a place there only because his mother used to work there. But his mother not only no longer works, she can no longer cope with life, and spends her days drunk for the most part, something which Kel has had to live with, and hide. Charlene writes to her old acquaintance Arthur Opp, asking if maybe he could advise her son Kel about colleges. 

The story is told alternately by Arthur and Kel, both of whom are endearing and wonderful voices. Arthur and Charlene connected as two lonely souls. She told him once how she felt she was invisible. He tells us 'I am one of the world's lonely', and that he 'felt destined for solitude' right from the beginning of his life, before then even, he was 'very certain that one day it would find me, so when it did I was not surprised & even welcomed it.' He has ways of consoling himself, through food especially, and has imagined that there is 'an oversoul of loneliness', a way that all those who are lonely in the world are somehow connected, and there is a reason for it.

'There was a delicious romance in being utterly alone, & I told myself I was nobler for it, & that there was a purpose to my solitude, O there must be.'

Liz Moore has captured how loneliness feels. How a person can withdraw from the world and years can pass by, spent in this solitude. In Arthur and Kel, she has created two wonderful, damaged, loveable characters whose lives are gradually drawn closer together through the strand that connects them; the life of one woman, herself lonely and destroyed. Slowly, their lives begin to shift. The appearance in Arthur's life of Yolanda signifies his first real contact with the outside world for a long time. An unlikely but wonderful friendship begins.

Meanwhile, the huge change in his life, partway through the story, takes Kel full circle, sees him spiralling down into despair, and leaves him longing 'to collapse into myself until I no longer exist, I want to live in my mother's house and never go out.' This passage sounds like Arthur. Kel wants to isolate himself from the world now. Are these two very different people actually rather alike? What has happened to make Kel feel this way? What will happen to them both?

The story moves along beautifully, it gripped me from the very start; it has surprises for us along the way, and is enjoyable and very poignant. I felt that the author really cared about these characters. It is a story filled with sadness and hope, and told in an intimate, warmhearted way. I loved, cared about, rooted for and was thoroughly convinced by Arthur and Kel and their lives throughout.

Thank you for a really brilliant book Liz Moore. The characters have stayed with me, and this story is certainly in my top reads of the year so far. 

Published by Hutchinson.


5/5

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Tell the Wolves I'm Home - Carol Rifka Brunt

This is a wonderful story about the close bond between a young girl, fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and her inspirational uncle, the noted artist Finn Weiss. He’s the only person that June feels she can share her secrets with, and reveal her true self to. When Finn passes away, June finds herself adrift, wondering how her life can possibly go on without Finn being a part of it. Then June meets Finn’s partner Toby, who has never been mentioned to June before, and a new friendship is slowly formed which will alter the way she views herself and her late uncle. They are both lonely, struggling to cope with life without Finn, united in the immense loss and grief they share.

It is also about siblings, and the changing relationship between June and Greta as they grow up, having lost the closeness they once shared, both wanting it back but seemingly unable to rediscover it from under all the layers of jealousy and misunderstanding.

This is a lovely, sincere, warm-hearted book, with a story rooted in the early days of AIDS awareness, when misconceptions abounded and most people didn’t openly discuss the illness. It is about our perceptions of people, the judgements we make, and how we can discover so much about ourselves and those close to us through the most unlikely friendships and in the most unexpected places.

I found this a profoundly moving novel, and a highly accomplished and heartfelt debut. 

Published by Macmillan on 7th June 2012.

Reviewed for lovereading.com - Thank you very much to them and the publisher for a proof copy of this novel.


5/5

HHhH - Laurent Binet

'It's as if a Dr. Frankenstein novelist had mixed up the greatest monsters of literature to create a new and terrifying creature. Except that Heydrich is not a paper monster.'

I was fascinated to read this book, having being a student of German history for several years. Sometimes a novel sits on your shelf and you're really not quite sure what it is going to be like when you open the cover and being to read. HHhH was such a book for me, because it tells a true story, contains real characters, and depicts actual historical events. Yet it is a novel. What will this reading experience be like, I wondered? The answer, for me, was fascinating, compelling and surprising. 

HHhH tells the amazing true story of 'Operation Anthropoid', when two heroic parachutists, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, one Czech and one Slovak, left Britain for Prague, with the task of assassinating Reinhard Heydrich, the then 'Protector of Bohemia and Moravia', senior figure in the Nazi party, and 'principal architect' of the Final Solution, creator of the terrible, murderous Einzatzgruppen, he is the 'Hangman of Prague, whom the Czechs also nicknamed the Butcher,' 'the most dangerous man in the Third Reich.'

The title, HHhH, stands for 'Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich' in German: in English, this is translated as Himmler's brain is called Heydrich, because 'in the devilish duo he forms with Himmler, he is thought to he the brains.' Binet builds the story slowly towards the main event, and along the way he finds evidence of Heydrich's dark deeds and involvement almost everywhere: 'it's incredible. Almost anywhere you look in the politics of the Third Reich, and particularly among its most terrifying aspects, Heydrich is there - at the center of everything.'

What makes this book even more interesting than being just an engrossing, present tense retelling of this thrilling episode in history, and of events leading up to it, is that the author speaks directly to the reader throughout. He breaks into the narrative and tells us where he has hesitated, where he thinks he might have made a mistake, or is unsure about an event; 'I've been talking rubbish, the victim of both a faulty memory and an overactive imagination.' And, at another point, he tells us; 'that scene, like the one before it, is perfectly believable and totally made up.' He has described this himself as the reader receiving the equivalent of 'the movie, and the making of the movie', all at once. This conversational tone, and the honesty, made me smile at times. He also discusses previous literature on this event, and films that have portrayed Heydrich. 

This book made a real impact on me. It is fascinating from a historical perspective, in particular with regard to Czechoslovakia then, and there were many things I learned and people I now know about, like Beneš, and Colonel Moravec, the heroic Gabčík and Kubiš, and other heroes of the Czechoslovakian resistance like them. As Binet so eloquently writes, 'how many forgotten heroes sleep in history's great cemetery?' I didn't feel like I was reading a translation either. The style is an unusual construction, but for me it was highly effective and extremely engaging. It is a compelling, moving story. Brilliant.

Translated from the French by Sam Taylor. 
HHhH was the winner of the Prix Goncourt du premier roman (2010). 


Published by Harvill Secker on 3rd May 2012 .

Thank you very much to the publisher for sending a proof copy of this novel to read and review.

The Street Sweeper - Elliot Perlman

'History...it's a way of honouring those who came before us. We can tell their stories. Wouldn't you want someone to tell your story? Ultimately, it's the best proof there is that we mattered. And what else is life from the time you were born but a struggle to matter, at least to someone?'

This novel is a multi-layered collection of stories and of people that make up those stories, all deftly weaved together to create the many landscapes of lives that are depicted here.

Initially, the main characters are Lamont Williams and Adam Zignelik. Lamont has recently been released from prison after unwittingly being caught up in a crime, and is now working, for an intial six-month probationary period, as a hospital janitor in Manhattan, desperate to impress and anxious to stay out of trouble, and longing to be somehow reunited with his young daughter. During his work there, he begins a friendship with an elderly patient, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, and Lamont listens as the patient recounts his remarkable past.

Adam is a twentieth century political historian working at Columbia University, and he is also the son of a prominent Jewish civil rights lawyer. However, Adam's career has come to a standstill and he is doubting himself and his relationship. William McCray, also a civil rights activist and a long-term friend of Adam's late father Jake, suggests a possible topic that Adam might look into in order to revive his academic research.
 However, the stories about Lamont and Adam also develop to involve the stories of their families, their friends, of acquaintances, whose lives have all impacted on each other in some way, whose stories are also told, and which all come together to build a picture of so many lives, and make one amazing book.

The reader is taken on an extraordinary journey through the lives of the characters, from New York to Chicago in the present day, back in time to pre-WWII Warsaw, and to Auschwitz. The stories are absorbing, and the way the characters from the present and past become linked through time is wonderful. I felt the excitement and anticipation as Adam realises how important the material he has unearthed from the past could be; a 'once in a career' find. The novel is beautifully written throughout, but one moving passage particularly stood out to me, when Adam is looking through the material he has found, relating to survivors at a camp for displaced persons after WWII has ended, a place...

'...where a cacophony of sounds approximating a myriad languages jostled fiercely with each other from the mouths of disparate ages and origins who shared only that, en masse, they were more broken from their first-hand experience of what humans are able to visit on one another, more broken from their unasked-for and unusally refined understanding of life's jagged extremes than perhaps any other collection of people on earth. Corralled again inside a camp, this one overseen by their liberators, they waited for a future almost as unimaginable to them as their recent past was to everybody else. Exhale too fast and you'd blow them over and with them their memories would spill out onto the very European ground their families now fertilised.'

I can't recommend this novel highly enough. For me, it is an absolutely stunning read. It makes for difficult reading at times; it made me feel painfully sad, it made me angry, it brought me to tears. The very worst of humanity, the cruelties and discrimination of racism that man has inflicted upon his fellow man, is here for us to witness. There are also moments of joy, and humour, and some incredibly humane, caring people who offer hope. The characters came so vividly to life in my head as I was reading. I couldn't wait to pick this book up again and read some more. Parts of the novel were an education for me, and caused me to stop and think, and I went off to find out more about certain dates and events. The author has undertaken a huge amount of research to bring his story to us. I love how the layers build, the story moves forward and back in time, and it all added to my pleasure in reading this novel. Please don't let the length put you off. 

Ultimately, it is about individual stories and memories, about history and about humanity, and about how we as people touch each other's lives.

It is a rich, intelligent, important book. I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

Published on 16th February 2012 by Faber & Faber.

Thank you very much to Newbooks magazine for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

5/5

The Light Between Oceans - M. L. Stedman

'He's in a place where there's just wind and waves and light, and the intricate machinery that keeps the flame burning and the lantern turning. Always turning, always looking over its shoulder.'

Tom Sherbourne is haunted by traumatic memories of his horrific experiences in World War I. He is one of the men who have returned to Australia, as so many did not. He is not physically scarred, 'but he's scarred all the same, having to live in the same skin as the man who did the things that needed to be done back then.' Now, looking to his future, he becomes a lighthouse keeper. He takes a position on remote Janus Rock, off the coast of South-Western Australia, with Point Partageuse being the nearest community on the mainland. Partageuse is a place where everyone knows everyone else, and where, after the war, 'gradually, once again lives wove together into a practical sort of fabric..', where '..Janus Rock, linked only by the store boat four times a year, dangled off the edge of the cloth like a loose button that might easily plummet to Antarctica.'

He meets local girl Isabel Graysmark whilst he is on the mainland, they correspond with each other when Tom returns to the lighthouse, and they fall in love and marry. For Isabel, the war has instilled a sense of urgency into life: 'If the war had taught her anything, it was to take nothing for granted...life could snatch away the things you treasured, and there was no getting them back.' Moving forward in time to the mid 1920s, we meet them living out on Janus Rock together, with a sadness hanging between them that they have no children, Isabel having suffered miscarriages. When a boat is washed up on the rock, they make a decision that day which will change the rest of their lives, as the couple is torn between love and desperate need, and the truth and reality of their situation.

There are some beautiful descriptions of the places, which made me want to visit the fictional Partageuse. Equally, the remote location of the lighthouse, the effects of the weather, the detail of the daily duties Tom carries out, is all conveyed well, and very convincingly, so that the reader can imagine the routine of their days, sense the isolation of the lighthouse keeper and his wife, and feel the remoteness of life on Janus Rock. The effects of the War on the community in Partageuse are movingly described, reminding us of the involvement of Australia in that conflict.

This is stunning prose and heart-wrenching storytelling for a debut writer. Through the story, the author delivers many truths about life. She highlights the best and worst sides of humans, the amount of courage, the strength of love, the severity of intense pain, the cruelty inflicted by a decision made out of Isabel's desperate longing, the remorse felt. A lovely read, it is also heartbreaking as the story unfolds and the repercussions play out. I was willing all the characters to the 'best' outcome for all of them, somehow. This story really touched me, I felt quite deeply affected by it, and I cried at the end. I loved this book. It's a great debut novel.

Thank you very much to the publisher for sending me a copy of this novel to read and review.

Published on 26th April 2012 by Doubleday, an imprint of Transworld Publishers.

The Uninvited Guests - Sadie Jones

'It was true: a small group of people was emerging from the gloom of the drive...slowly and all together.'


I am a big admirer of this writer - I loved her last novel Small Wars, and for me and for very many other readers, her debut novel The Outcast is a real favourite. The book jacket for her latest novel, The Uninvited Guests', displays a sticker billing the story as a 'supernatural new drama', so we know straight away that we may expect some extraordinary events as the story unfolds, and that this book will offer something a little bit different. 

The story takes us back to 1912, to the day of Emerald Torrington's twentieth birthday, with preparations underway for her party that evening. Meanwhile, their country home, Sterne, is at risk of being lost, if stepfather Edward Swift cannot find some quick solution to their financial woes. His wife Charlotte still mourns her beloved first husband Horace, and children Emerald, Clovis and Imogen 'Smudge' all miss their father; Clovis in particular regards his stepfather Edward with disdain, and Emerald is in tears, realising 'that the resented step-parent was now her devoutly wished-for rescuer'. Edward sets off to Manchester to seek the necessary funds by whatever unhappy means he can. We learn though that the Torrington family has lived here and there, and that Sterne is not an ancestral estate at all. Then news filters to the house that there has been a rail disaster on a nearby branch line, and that survivors will need temporary shelter at Sterne. This unsettles the family and guests in place for the birthday supper, and much uncertainty ensues as the mysterious group of survivors arrives, and the family fails to deal adequately with the resulting situation at first, as their usually ordered, rigid existence is disrupted. 

I enjoyed this strange novel, a combination of an Edwardian country house drama and an unsettling ghost story. I loved the very witty and wry commentary and sharp observations from the author on the characters and their behaviour. The three children are all interesting though not particularly likeable, perhaps with the exception of young Smudge. Emerald wonders the garden talking to herself, and doesn't initially seem particularly fond of any the guests coming for her birthday. Clovis seems sulky, selfish and spoiled. Smudge is evidently used to entertaining herself much of the time; indeed 'Smudge was very often forgotten', and there are a couple of hilarious incidents of Smudge's own making involving Lady, the horse. 

Equally clever and entertaining are some of the descriptions, some real gems, in particular one about a 'low settee. This item of furniture was best suited to polite perching as the seat was broken entirely; it was but an empty promise of a seat.' I could often visualise scenes in the novel from the vivid descriptions. This tale takes a sinister, unsettling turn when the strange uninvited guests appear, seeming at first to be one huge mass, and appearing to increase in number. There is no word of assistance from the Railway, and then another man arrives, Charlie Traversham-Beechers, who immediately unsettles some of the birthday guests and his unsettling presence will bring about revelations and change the course of the night; ‘he was like a magnet, the air was thick with the pull of him’. For some of the members of the family, and some of the guests, there is a transformation or an insight into themselves and their true feelings by the end of the novel, a self-realisation which brings joy for some of them and instills a degree of acceptance and kindness into others, bringing about unexpected alliances. It's difficult to say more without spoiling the story for other readers. If you are open to a different style of novel, you might just find this one rewarding. 

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Published by Chatto & Windus on 22 March 2012. 


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