O Caledonia

'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' Ali Smith 'The reader feels unalloyed joy on every page' Independent 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 Lila. A life where Janet is perpetually misunderstood - and must turn from people, to animals, to books, to her own wild and wonderful imagination. A W&N Essential with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell '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 Readers love this classic: 'Macabre, funny and sad. Beautifully written' 'Dizzying heights and depths of despair' 'Poetically written ... I will read it over and over' 'Poetic, magical, disturbing ... and comforting' 'I am so happy that I chanced across this book, whilst simultaneously being devastated that I have only just discovered it'

'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' Ali Smith 'The reader feels unalloyed joy on every page' Independent 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 Lila. A life where Janet is perpetually misunderstood - and must turn from people, to animals, to books, to her own wild and wonderful imagination. A W&N Essential with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell '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 Readers love this classic: 'Macabre, funny and sad. Beautifully written' 'Dizzying heights and depths of despair' 'Poetically written ... I will read it over and over' 'Poetic, magical, disturbing ... and comforting' 'I am so happy that I chanced across this book, whilst simultaneously being devastated that I have only just discovered it'