The Boy Who Taught The Beekeeper To Read: and Other Stories

Description

A young school boy visiting his aunt's country house finds company and friendship with the gentle beekeeper and begins teaching the man to read, so that it seems nothing can ever intrude upon their closeness. A young country girl fights against becoming a downtrodden domestic skivvy like her dead mother, while another young girl reaches a delicate understanding with an elderly blind man as they walk along the beach together. On another beach a more sinister plot unfolds as a gang of boys plan the most wicked deed they can conceive of-

Susan Hill has been a professional writer for over fifty years. Her books have won awards and prizes including the Whitbread, the John Llewellyn Rhys and the Somerset Maugham; and have been shortlisted for the Booker. Her novels include Strange Meeting, I'm the King of the Castle and A Kind Man; and she has also published autobiographical works and collections of short stories. The play of her ghost story The Woman in Black has been running in London's West End since 1988. She is married with two adult daughters and lives in North Norfolk.

Hill can evoke a setting, convey the essence of a situation and let one see into the inmost hearts of her character in a paragraph or even a single sentence -- Francis King * Spectator * Hill's sentences speak eloquently...the pleasure to be had from [these] stories lies in their carefulness: memories are exactly sustained, small gifts are valued, little words are listened to * Guardian * Hill's stories evoke place, situation and complex emotions with enviable economy... Masterly * Daily Mail * Simple and mesmeric prose * Observer * These very strange, beautiful tales demonstrate a relentless capacity to surprise... The Boy Who Taught the Beekeeper to Read introduces many individual people who will continue to stare back at the reader long after the book is closed * Times Literary Supplement *