Drawing on anecdote, autobiography,

and an extraordinary range of reading,

novelist Tim Parks has fused together

essav and narrative to create a beguilingly

new reading experience, at once charming,

gripping and intellectually mind-blowing

Whether he is exploring ghosts or First

World War heroes, Indian gods or Verona

football club. adultery or the EC each

piece moves with masterful assurance

towards those moments of illumination

when finally we appreciate, if only fleetingly,

the relationship between our most intimate

experiences and the larger world of ideas.