The Thirteenth Tale

by Diane Setterfield

making things up, it’s what we do for a living.

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

Endings like this are to be found more commonly in old novels than new ones, so I read old novels.

There is one thing on which we are agreed: there are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere.

He was an outdoors man, and not domesticated Nevertheless he knew that there comes a time when cups cannot be made to do for one more cup of tea without being first washed, and he knew moreover that a plate that has held raw meat cannot be used straight after for cooked.

Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes – characters even – caught in the fibres of your clothes, and when you open the new book they are still with you.

The door, overgrown with ivy, had not been opened for a long time, and I had to pull the foliage away with my hands before I could open the latch.

Secret Garden