The pure gold baby

Jessica Speight, a young anthropology student in 1960s London, is at the beginning of a promising academic career when an affair with her married professor turns her into a single mother. Anna is a pure gold baby with a delightful sunny nature. But as it becomes clear that Anna will not be a normal child, the book circles questions of responsibility, potential, even age, with Margaret Drabble's characteristic intelligence, sympathy, and wit. 

Drabble once wrote, "Family life itself, that safest, most traditional, most approved of female choices, is not a sanctuary; it is, perpetually, a dangerous place."  

Elizabeth Day's very appreciative review in The Guardian

Sweet tooth

Serena Frome, the beautiful daughter of an Anglican bishop, has a brief affair with an older man during her final year at Cambridge, and finds herself being groomed for the intelligence service. The year is 1972. Britain, confronting economic disaster, is being torn apart by industrial unrest and terrorism and faces its fifth state of emergency. The Cold War has entered a moribund phase, but the fight goes on, especially in the cultural sphere.

The Guardian review, James Lasdun

The Buddha of Suburbia, by Hanif Kureishi

Read more at London Fictions

Karim, a dreamy teenager, is desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer.

The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas

Guardian book club

At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly boy. It's a single act of violence. But this event reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen.

The Other Hand, by Chris Cleave

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This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice. Two years later, they meet again- the story starts there...




Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl.