Now here are two books with nothing more in common than the printed word:

  • Dark Star by Alan Furst. A great espionage story set in 1937 Europe. Very atmospheric and remarkably realistic but I felt a little cheated by the unlikely tidying up, in near monologue, of the background story by the German spymaster Von Polanyi.
  • Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott. A daily journal of her first year as a mother, it is funny, angry, witty, desperate, hopeful and a sometimes painfully intimate account of just how very badly damaged the author is. Still, I loved reading it.