The first home I ever bought was a mistake. I knew it from the minute we arrived as first-time homeowners with hundreds of bags and boxes piled in the street behind us. On paper, the flat in Southeast London was just what my husband and I wanted: two bedrooms, high ceilings and a large garden. But in the chaos of moving day, a niggling thought that we’d got it wrong just wouldn’t leave me alone.
Damp appeared in places that didn’t make sense, and I always felt cold there. One winter evening, when I was home alone, a standing lamp in the corner of the living room suddenly started to shudder violently, shaking and ringing like a bell. My husband raised an eyebrow when I told him; friends offered up the bus route on our road as an explanation. It didn’t feel like a haunting, just a physical manifestation of the gloom that had settled in our rooms.
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Patricia Nicol reveals a selection of the best books on new babies, as she reveals her exhausted days of early motherhood are behind her now. Among her top picks is The Foundling.
Stacey Halls s novel is full of secrets, deceptions and troubled family histories, with the brooding, blasted landscape of West Yorkshire as the perfect backdrop
, longlisted for the International Booker, has a disabled child at its centre and squares up to dangerous subjects. It is a heartening novel, because though it asks the reader to think hard, it puts its faith in simplicity and love. Neurologist Suzanne OâSullivan offers
The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness to put you wise about Havana syndrome and other puzzles: itâs not cheerful, but it is current and it is bracing.
David Nicholls
Something new: I very much enjoyed Meg Masonâs witty, affecting
Sorrow and Bliss. Something old: I love John Cheeverâs stories and am curious to know which have made it into Julian Barnesâs new selection,