Michaela Kolowski

There's a lot of stuff on memory, on how do you bear witness to,

If your memories kind of had holes punched in it.

So some beautiful insights and ideas about how you can construct meaning out of a life when the life has been very truncated by very serious trauma.

And yet it's an extraordinarily uplifting book witness.

And at the end, it has what I love.

It has a great reading list of all the things that Elie Wiesel would discuss in class or that other students raised in class.

And that's really fun.

I have to say Michael Connolly was a kind of a new addition to my list.

I worked in the book trade many years ago for a long time and he was one of those authors that we just sold.

We could never be out of stock of him.

The crime writer.

The crime writer, US crime writer, Michael Connolly.

And I dived in.

I had dived in many years ago and I dived in again this year and I really enjoyed his latest, which is called The Night Fire.

So he does this lovely thing where he's got these very strong male characters, quite unforgettable male characters like Harry Bosch and Harry McCaleb.

And he's created this terrific female character called Renée Ballard, who just seems effortless for Connolly.

She doesn't seem like he's had to struggle too hard or stretch too hard.

It doesn't seem awkward for him to have written her.

And he's put her together with Bosch.

and he's made Bosch age in real time.