Penelope Lively's novel Heat Wave offers a psychologically astute portrayal of a family grappling with the destructive cycle of infidelity, set against the backdrop of a long, hot English summer...

This is a story about time travel, and it is set in the now almost forgotten Paris of the 1950’s. Laurain indulges himself and his readers by writing about the city as it was then. He writes about the people of the day, both the famous and the perfectly ordinary, as well the places that have since disappeared or have changed so much as to be unrecognisable...

Old Herbaceous tells the story of a man and his life in the garden, surrounded by plants and flowers that he gives all his time and his love to. At the beginning of the book we meet Burt Pinnegar, a somewhat crotchety old man, the retired head-gardener at the manor house, who's looking back on his life and reliving his memories...

This is a charming book that I find myself wanting to recommend to everyone. It's a book about books and reading, but unlike other books of this kind, which tend to be non-fiction, it's a novel, and it features a very real person, Queen Elizabeth, who is the uncommon reader in the title. It's a delightful account of the journey of a once non-reader into the world of books. 

This is a story about a school-teacher, Mr Chipping, who his students fondly call Mr Chips. He's the beloved Latin teacher at a quiet boys' school in England called Brookfield. When the book opens, we meet him as an old man, living in rooms across the road from his beloved school, still organising his days by the school bell, inviting the new boys, and some of the older ones over to tea, and keeping up with the goings on at the school...

The novel tells the story of Brian, a solitary middle-aged man living a carefully ordered life in London. He works at the Camden Council, eats lunch at the same cafe every day, and returns to his quiet flat every evening. His general approach to life can be summed up as, "Keep watch. Stick to routine. Protect against surprises." However, despite his preference for solitude, he does yearn for a bit more, as he enters his forties.

Published in 1980, this slim novel (at just over a 100 pages) is perfect for a quiet afternoon. But believe me, you will want it to last longer, and to read slower, to soak it all in...

Laurie Colwin is a novelist who liked to cook, and to write about food, which she does even in her novels. She wrote five popular novels, three collections of short stories, and two collections of essays about food and life in the kitchen...

Some books are hard to summarise. A novel about astronomy, religion, friendship and unrequited love, Enlightenment by Sarah Perry is all of these things. What will stay with me though is the atmosphere of the bleak Essex landscape, Perry’s beautiful and unhurried telling of a complex tale, and the character of the protagonist, Thomas Hart...