I wouldn't normally choose to mark World Book Day, but having just read what I found to be a wonderful book, I thought, well, why not.

I find that Kate Atkinson's novels are well crafted and deeply satisfying to read.  Yesterday, I spent something like six hours reading the second half of "A God in Ruins", a Costa Book Prize winner for 2015, and, for me, a wonderful read.  I think every book of hers I've read (still a few to go) has in some way resonated with my own experiences, or questions or thoughts.  This one, focussing on the life story of one, now very elderly and frail, man, I found really gripping.  I loved the easy movement backwards and forwards in time within chapters, as well as the more formal movement between them.  Above all, it was resonant descriptions of an elederly parent moving first to sheltered housing and then to a care home that I found most moving, and somehow reassuring.

The author herself notes certain threads/connections within the story - one being a 'red thread', which appears at various times.  I hadn't spotted this, but once she mentioned it, I found myself recalling how 'red threads' feature also in the Old Testament (think Jacob or Rahab).  I was also reminded how connections are always there to be made or discovered by the reader.  Above all, I was reminded why I love reading, and how a good novel can convey powerful truths if only we have the eyes to see them or ears to hear them.

I have a number of other books waiting to be read now - and hope that doing so will both enrich my inner world and help inform my outer one.