Alone with a Book

A lively, astute essay collection about the pleasure of reading deeply and seeing our world reflected back to us in art

For as long as Tessa Hadley can remember, life has been made vivid by reading. The touchstones of childhood were the laminated pages of a Ladybird book, then the sail boats in Swallows and Amazons, then the rich and immersive The Secret Garden. Reading was not an escape as such, but rather reading about life seemed to enhance the edges and details of living: the ordinary world, with its corners, routines and small dramas, came into focus through the stories she loved.

In these precise and energising essays, Hadley turns to the books and the art that have animated her life, and asks what it means to connect with one book over another. Ranging across the works of Jane Austen, Elizabeth Bowen, Alice Munro, J.M. Coetzee and Leila Slimani and more, Hadley returns to the enduring power of realism – as a craft, a joy, and a way of relating to the world, where life is made richer, deeper, and more fully imagined through fiction.