Howards End is on the Landing: a Year of Reading from Home by Susan Hill, reviewed by Nicholas Hoare

As ghost stories go, Susan Hill's immortal "The Woman in Black" is right up there with those of M.R. James. Of late, however, she has indulged another passion: that of calling a halt to buying new books, and instead re-reading her old.

"'Howards End' Is on the Landing" begins with an innocent search for a missing tome, but ends up becoming an odyssey of rediscovery, in which she spots other books in her collection that she has either never read, forgotten she owns, or has a belated urge to re-read. In this delightful work, as far removed from conventional literary criticism as chalk is from cheese (she is a consummate book reviewer herself), one is treated to a mix of autobiography, rumination, criticism and wit: a heady mixture, indeed, but oh! the books themselves! Her impeccable taste, reflected in such chapters as "The Well-Travelled Bookcase," "Who's Afraid?" and "Never Got Around to It, Don't Like the Look of It, Couldn't Get Beyond Page Ten" will be all too familiar to like-minded readers faced with similar problems (not least space).

A lovely journey of rediscovery, from the hands of a seasoned pro.

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