Grief is unpredictable. There I was in May, getting ready for a Kylie concert – my eyeliner had gone on perfectly and my mind was racing. Would my hair go flat after an hour on the Tube? Would the kid

IN AN AGE OF COMPARISON CULTURE AND GLOSSY SOCIAL-MEDIA LIVES, IT’S HARD NOT TO QUESTION YOUR OWN PROGRESS. BUT THERE’S NO RIGHT PATH TO LIFE AS THESE WOMEN, WHO ARE TURNING CONVENTION ON ITS HEAD AND SHARING WISDOM AS THEY GO, DEMONSTRATE…

A love-hate relationship recalled by France’s ‘greatest living writer’

Literary news andreviews with alocal flavour

MY mum and dad don’t live together. They split up two years ago, when I was eight. I mostly live with Mum, in our cosy semi-detached house where I have my own bedroom. But I also have my own room in D

I’M up at my parents’ old house, surrounded by boxes of books. My mum was a voracious reader. You only had to see all the bookcases in her home to realise that. Many books were bought for her as gifts