Alison Booth

You have to be qualified by misery to read that book.

I had never read a book like that.

And these are the stories that I am so honored to learn and to read.

So here you have the book as a mirror.

Thank you.

Hello.

No, not really.

It hasn't made much difference.

I guess that's a reflection of the lives we lead.

I'm married to an academic and we spend a lot of time reading and working and neither of us is lecturing at the moment.

So really our life is going on as normal.

Yes, I think it's a very lovely beginning and a very lovely device.

Because essentially what Anderson has done is to use this month of Nora's illness as a framing device for the memories of her life, the important memories of her life, and some memories that are hidden and that emerged during her bout of pneumonia.

So she's really very ill and she's very fortunate to have neighbours to care for her.

But these neighbours, they're a means of linking back to memories of her childhood as well because they're related to people that she's known when she was young.

So that's a very successful way of framing the overall story.

Well, that's not really believable, is it?

Yes, I thought that was very beautiful, this girl's developing sexuality.

And I think that sex is actually quite a strong underlying theme throughout this book.

And when we got on to talking about her marriage, we might want to talk about this again.