Aoife Clifford

Hello.

How are you?

Well, I feel like we must be in lockdown three, lockdown 2.5.

I'm not sure.

Look, all things considered, we're going well.

Yes, it does feel very full when you've got the full five of us all at home.

And, in fact, I'm the only person that heads out these days because I'm able to work contactless at the bookshop.

So that's actually quite a joy on occasions to leave the house behind me.

Yes, I was lucky enough to get my hands on it yesterday, in fact.

Jock Sorong's very popular in my bookshop, so...

You always have to be very quick.

And I was not quick enough this time to get the early reading copy.

So I've got it sitting there waiting for me now.

Yes.

Well, actually, I'm currently reading The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.

And the reason I am was just before we went into lockdown, I had a customer in the shop who was just raving about it to me.

And he seemed a person that didn't normally rave about books.

So I sort of had to think about, I was really interested to see what had really captured him by this book.

Of course, I mean, Colson Whitehead's such a well-recognised author, but I hadn't read this one.

And so the minute I picked it up, in fact, like the first opening sentence,