Penelope Lively’s seventh novel was published in 1987. Ostensibly a novel about one woman’s extraordinary life, the story is complex, playing with time and view-points. It raises questions about history that provide us with a starting point for exploring our responses to the characters, the world represented, and the world we know… or think we do. We’ll spend the day considering a variety of approaches to the writing. In 1987, one dissenting voice amongst the many positive reviews thought it ‘too sheltered… tidy and appealing’. In 2018 it was shortlisted to represent the 1980s in the Golden Man Booker Prize.