It started as a plan to help her customers, but soon stationery shop owner Rebecca McMillan, 34, from Cheltenham, realised she’d hit on something far bigger than she could ever have realised…

“As movers and the moved both know”, John Updike noted, “books are heavy freight ... They make us think twice about changing addresses.” Books: A manifesto, or, How to build a library begins with the

Jamaica Kincaid Putting Myself Together Writing 1974-336pp. Picador. £20. Born in Antigua in 1949, Jamaica Kincaid spent her first years in the United States as a teenage servant (her word, “au pairs”

Journalling is meant to bring clarity and compassion, yet can become a space of self-judgement. What if, instead of silencing our inner critic, we learned to listen to her?

LETTERS

YOU can’t just throw it all in a skip, Mum!” Bryony’s voice was muffled by a dust mask as she crouched in the loft space, carefully avoiding bumping her head on the beams. She examined a battered trun