Howards End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home

Susan Hill

Jan 2010 · Profile Books

About this ebook

Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired her to embark on a year-long voyage through her books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know her own collection again.

A book which is left on a shelf for a decade is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, packed with the potential to burst into new life. Wandering through her house that day, Hill's eyes were opened to how much of that life was stored in her home, neglected for years. Howard's End is on the Landing charts the journey of one of the nation's most accomplished authors as she revisits the conversations, libraries and bookshelves of the past that have informed a lifetime of reading and writing.

About the author

Susan Hill was born in Scarborough, United Kingdom on February 5, 1942. She received a degree in English from King's College in London in 1963. Her first book, The Enclosure, was published during her first year at university. She worked as a freelance journalist between 1963 and 1968 and has been a monthly columnist for the Daily Telegraph since 1977. She founded her own publishing company, Long Barn Books, in 1996 and publishes a literary magazine called Books and Company. She has written works of fiction and non-fiction as well as children's books. She also edits short story compilations. Her works include Gentleman and Ladies, A Change for the Better, The Woman in Black, The Mist in the Mirror, and the Simon Serrailler Crime Novel series. She has won numerous awards including a Somerset Maugham Award for I'm the King of the Castle, the Whitbread Novel Award for The Bird of Night, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for The Albatross, and the Smarties Prize for Can It Be True?