W&N Essentials

''I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named O Caledonia as her favourite book'' Maggie O''Farrell ''A sparky, funny work of genius and one of the best least-known novels of the 20th Century'' Ali Smith ''Funny, surprising, exquisitely written and brilliant on the smelly, absurd, harsh business of growing up'' David Nicholls ''A wonderful oddity - brief, vivid, eccentric, written with ferocious zest and black humour'' Penelope Lively At the bottom of a great stone staircase, dressed in her mother''s black lace evening dress, twisted in murderous death, lies Janet. So end the sixteen years of Janet''s short life. A life spent in a draughty Scottish castle, where roses will not grow, and a jackdaw decides to live in the doll''s house. A life peopled by prettier, smoother-haired siblings, a Nanny with a face like the North Sea and the peculiar, whisky-swigging Cousin