Reading by Lightning
ABOUT
THE BOOK
In her teens, Lily is sent to England to care for her grandmother and further explores the delicious question of who she might become. She falls in love with her adopted cousin, learns to experience life in all its ambiguity, and waits with the rest of England for the Second World War to start – until the news she has been dreading arrives on the doorstep, and she is called home to face a future she thought she had escaped.
Reading by Lightning is a Bildungsroman of great wit and depth. Thomas’s prose is wry and intimate, elegant and devastatingly funny. Her engrossing story of Lily Piper tells us something of how we can make sense of a future when the future is some-thing we can hardly imagine.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Winner of the 2009 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel (Canadian and Caribbean Category); Consistently positive reviews using words such as “tunning, elegant, precise, complex, extraordinary, exceptional, rich and believable”; the personal favourite of our judging panel, who enjoyed the compelling character of Lily and the elegant writing style; and finally an irresistible chance to promote the excellent product of a small New Brunswick publisher to an international readership.