A Review By Keith Smith

Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired her to embark on a year-long voyage through her books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know her own collection again. Wandering through her house that day, Hill’s eyes were opened to how much of that life was stored in her home, neglected for years.

“Howard’s End is on the Landing”  allows Susan Hill to revisit the conversations, libraries and bookshelves of the past that have informed a lifetime of reading and writing. You can’t help but be drawn in on this somewhat self-indulgent exercise and you find yourself building up likes and dislikes of the woman herself, thoroughly intelligent and good company, by turns disarming, smug, name-dropping, gossipy and persuasive. If you are interested in books, the place of books in society, the history of books, authors’ minds and foibles, you’ll want to read this, and it is easily digestible being written in very small chunks – ideal for bedtime reading. She even manages to cover small books, pop-up books, and a host of other categories which rarely get a mention. Fascinating!