Today I downloaded some books onto my Kindle for holiday reading.  It happens that two of them are by authors I know or have known in real life.

Mark Haddon sat next to or opposite me at school for two years in the early nineteen seventies, so I am always curious to read his work and see who he is 'quoting'... such as our class teacher from 1972/3 who gave her name to a character in A Spot of Bother.

Less known is Peter Johnstone who has assured me I won't like his debut novel... time will tell.  He and his family attended the same church as I did for a number of years in the late nineteen nineties and, by the quirks of these things, have some convoluted connections with the Gathering Place.

Two very different people, two very different books, but these and a few others will help some very long journeys to pass in the next little while!