''I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named O Caledonia as her favourite book'' Maggie O''Farrell
''A sparky, funny work of genius and one of the best least-known novels of the 20th Century'' Ali Smith
''Funny, surprising, exquisitely written and brilliant on the smelly, absurd, harsh business of growing up. The Bront-isters and Poe via Dodie Smith and Edward Gorey'' David Nicholls
''An absolute sumptuous treat of a book'' Elizabeth Macneal
''A wonderful oddity - brief, vivid, eccentric, written with ferocious zest and black humour'' Penelope Lively
''The words sing in their sentences'' The Times
''The reader feels unalloyed joy on every page'' Independent
Vera was painting the pony''s hooves gold in the dining room; Janet said this was bad for him; poison would seep into his bloodstream.
At th
