Gliterary Lunches - Food For Thought

Whatever You Love
by Louise Doughty

The Author

Louise Doughty is a novelist, playwright and literary critic whose profile has risen tremendously over the last few years. Her 'Novel in a Year' column in the Telegraph was hugely successful and she broadcasts regularly for BBC Radio 4, as well as teaching for the Faber Academy.

She is the author of five novels Crazy Paving, Dance with Me, Honey-dew, Fires in the Dark and Stone Cradle, and one work of non-fiction A Novel in a Year. Louise has also written five plays for radio and was a judge for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for fiction. She lives in London.

Whatever You Love is a brilliant heart-wrenching and emotionally-charged novel of revenge, compulsion and desire.

Praise for Louise Doughty

'Doughty has a subtle, unshowy talent that packs an emotional punch, and creates characters and relationships that ring true ... moves and impresses in equal measure.'
Independent

The Plot

When two police officers knock on Laura's door, her life changes forever. Her nine-year old daughter Betty has been hit by a car and killed, and Laura is left both devastated and desperate for revenge against the man responsible for Betty's death.

Laura's grief re-opens old wounds and she is thrown back to the story of her passionate love affair with Betty's father David, their marriage and his subsequent affair with another woman.

Haunted by her past, and driven to breaking point by her desire for retribution, Laura discovers the lengths she is willing to go to for love.

What Becomes
by AL Kennedy

The Author

With five previous novels, two books of non-fiction, and three collections of short stories, AL Kennedy's most recent book, Day, was the Costa Book of the Year. She has twice been selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and has won many prizes including the Lannan Literary Award, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Encore Award and the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award. She lives in Glasgow and is a part-time lecturer in creative writing at Warwick University.

Praise for AL Kennedy

'one of the most brilliant writers of her generation'
Sunday Telegraph

'Genius… Kennedy's skill as a writer continues to be astonishing. Every metaphor, every image hits like a painfully well-aimed arrow.'
Independent on Sunday

The Plot

The twelve short stories that make up What Becomes are profound observations of men and women whose lives ache with possibility. The protagonists conceal tenderness and disappointment, vulnerability and longing, grief and wonder. Her remarkable collection of short stories tell us exactly what becomes of the broken-hearted. AL Kennedy reveals sadness, violence, hurt and terror - but also the redemption of love. She does so with enormous human compassion, wild leaps of humour and with the brilliant original linguistic skill that has distinguished her as one of Britain's finest writers.