On Reading, Writing and Looking

We are delighted to welcome Tessa Hadley to our bookshop for this extra bookish event!

Alone with a Book is a glorious celebration of reading deeply and seeing our world and ourselves reflected back to us in art. In this gorgeous and engaging collection of essays, Tessa writes on a lifetime of reading with the clarity and perceptiveness that have made her one of the most widely loved names in contemporary fiction. She charts her development as a lover of literature from a book-mad childhood shaped by libraries and imaginary worlds, through the long, uncertain years of writing and teaching, to the mature artistic vision that defines her work today.

Here, Tessa Hadley turns to writers as varied as George Eliot and George Saunders, Tolstoy and Elizabeth Bowen, and looks closely at a handful of paintings. Throughout, her sharp eye, precise judgement, and instinct for style guides the reader towards the pleasures found in each text, and in a life made richer, deeper, and more fully imagined through art.

Tessa Hadley is the bestselling author of eight acclaimed novels, including Free Love, The Past, and The Party.

Description supplied by the event organiser.