Jacob's Room is Full of Books: A Year of Reading

Description

When we spend so much of our time immersed in books, who's to say where reading ends and living begins? The two are impossibly and gloriously wedded, as Hill shows in Jacob's Room Is Full of Books. Considering everything from Edith Wharton's novels through to Alan Bennett's diaries, Virginia Woolf and the writings of twelfth century monk Aelred of Rievaulx, Susan Hill charts a year of her life through the books she has read, reread or returned to the shelf. From beneath a shady tree in a hot French summer, or the warmth of a kitchen during an English winter, Hill reflects on what her reading throws up, from writing and writers to politics and religion, as well as the joy of dandies or the pleasure of watching a line of geese cross a meadow. Full of wry observations and warm humour, as well as strong opinions freely aired, this is a rare and wonderful insight into the rich world of reading from one of the nation's most accomplished authors.

Susan Hill is the winner of numerous literary prizes, including the Somerset Maugham award. In 2014, she was awarded a CBE for her services to literature. Her books have won awards and prizes including the Whitbread and the John Llewellyn Rhys and the Somerset Maugham; and have been shortlisted for the Booker. Author of the Simon Serrailler crime series and numerous other novels, her previous literary memoir, Howards End is on the Landing, and the ghost stories The Small Hand, The Travelling Bag and Printers Devil Court are all published by Profile. The Woman in Black, which has been running in the West End for thirty years, and was a huge film in 2012, is published by Profile in hardback.

Hill is wise, affectionate, insightful. Here is a distillation of a lifetime of reading, writing, editing, publishing, buying, hoarding, lending, borrowing and dog-earing books * The Times * The bookworm in your life will be champing at the bit to read [Hill's] recommendations * Saga * This thought-provoking book gives both inspiration on new titles to explore and a soothing sense that reading is indeed a vital and central part of living * Press Association *