Top reads

These are the books Harriet enjoyed most this year. Bliss and Other Stories/The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield, My Grandmothers and I by Diana Holman-Hunt, The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall, and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (even better second time around, if such a thing is possible)

On lessons learned

‘Most of my classmates hated Observations (so boring!) but I loved them. I loved the discipline: the accumulation of detail and the curious heady pleasure of finding exactly the right word, the only word that would fit, like a key in a lock.’ More on Bookanista