Salley Vickers

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The Artist and The Angel

The Enchanted April

The Gardener

Grandmothers

The Cleaner of Chartres

Cousins

The Message from Lindisfarne

The Boy Who Could See Death

Vacation

The Librarian

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

A nostalgic treat...involving and hopeful

Excellent... a period tale of sentimental education, it's deliciously readable, with a clever epilogue zooming into the present day for a last gasp surprise

No one can dig down into the shrouded recesses of the human heart quite as forensically as Vickers

Vickers writes of relationships with undaunted clarity

This beautifully crafted novel is a tribute to the power of books

The Librarian will wring the heart of anyone who fell in love with books as a child. It is a hymn to the power of children's literature...delightful

Vickers lays bare the inner workings of one family, possibly every family, with an often disconcerting clarity

Vickers' real skill as a story teller is in allowing each distinct voice to contribute to a complete, or as complete as can be, picture of one family... the pace gathers, making for a deeply poignant climax

The Top 10 Sunday Times Bestseller

In 1958, Sylvia Blackwell, a newly-trained librarian, takes up the post of Children's Librarian in a run down library in the market town of East Mole. But her project to inspire the local children to read is threatened by undercurrents of prejudice in the seemingly pleasant town. Her position is also affected by her love affair with a married GP. The relationship his precocious daughter forms with the son of Sylvia's neighbour, and a deprived child struggling to pass the impending eleven plus, puts Sylvia's job and the existence of the library in danger. 
 
How do the children fare as a result of the books Sylvia introduces them to? And how does the library alter the children's lives?

*A Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller* 
 
'Vickers sees with a clear eye and writes with a light hand; she's a presence worth cherishing in the ranks of modern novelists.' Philip Pullman 
 
In 1958, Sylvia Blackwell, fresh from one of the new post-war Library Schools, takes up a job as children's librarian in a run down library in the market town of East Mole. 
 
Her mission is to fire the enthusiasm of the children of East Mole for reading. But her love affair with the local married GP, and her befriending of his precious daughter, her neighbour's son and her landlady's neglected grandchild, ignite the prejudices of the town, threatening her job and the very existence of the library with dramatic consequences for them all. 
 
The Librarian is a moving testament to the joy of reading and the power of books to change and inspire us all. 
 
'Underneath the delightful patina of nostalgia for post-War England, there are stern and spiky questions about why we are allowing our children to be robbed of their heritage of story.' Frank Cottrell Boyce 
 
'Vickers has a formidable knack for laying open the human heart' Sunday Times

Salley Vickers is the author of many novels, including Miss Garnet's Angel, The Cleaner of Chartres and Cousins. She has worked as a teacher of children with special needs, a university teacher of literature and a psychoanalyst. She now writes fulltime and divides her time between London and Wiltshire. She attributes such success as she has achieved in life to an early love of reading.

The Librarian

The Top 10 Sunday Times Bestseller

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