The Best of Books and Company

Foreword / [by Susan Hill] -- A roof of one's own / Jeanette Winterson -- Why do we read? / Alain de Boton -- How I discovered books / Roger Scruton -- Could we see some identification, please? / Sophie Hannah -- De-accessioning / Penelope Lively -- Visiting the store-room / Francis King -- Learning to read, Yorkshire 1928 / Kit Pyman -- O, the books of my youth! / Juliet Nicolson -- Corpses in the quad : the curious case of Oxbridge crime / Andrew Taylor -- P.C. Plod apprehended / Andrew Taylor -- The country of the pointed firs / Penelope Fitzgerald -- The Brontë sisters / Lucasta Miller -- William Maxwell : writer of unmissable novels /Adèle Geras -- Enjoying Scott / W.E.K. Anderson -- Left hand, right hand! revisited / Philip Ziegler -- Re-reading David Copperfield / William Trevor -- The happy priest / Jane Gardam -- Lilias Rider Haggard / Patricia Cleveland-Peck -- J.L. Carr's A month in the country / Penelope Fitzgerald -- Rooms of their own / Margaret de Fonblanque -- Our writers / Ronald Blythe -- The ghost stories of M.R. James / John Francis -- An inheritance / Philip Hensher -- The man on the number 46 bus / Nick Harkaway -- Coming in from the outside / Inga-Stina Ewbank.