Girl Reading

'Ward is wise, poised, and utterly original. Her eye and her words are fresh, as if she is inventing the world' Hilary MantelAn orphan poses nervously for a Renaissance maestro in medieval Siena, and an artist's servant girl in seventeenth-century Amsterdam snatches a moment away from her work to lose herself in tales of knights and battles. In a Victorian photography studio, a woman holds a book that she barely acknowledges while she waits for the exposure, and in a Shoreditch bar in 2008 a woman reading catches the eye of a young man who takes her picture.'A wonderful , imaginative evocation . . . It's a book packed full of adventures and stories and you completely lose yourself in them as Ward races through time from the 1300s and into the future . . . Like David Mitchell, Ward is equally adept at shifting between completely different registers and voices . . . Girl Reading has real beating heart' Viv Groskop, The Times'A lively, irreverent journey through history' Katie Allen, Time Out Book of the Week'If you're planning to pack any holiday books this year, make sure Girl Reading is one of them' CosmopolitanBiographie de l'auteurKatie Ward was born in Somerset in 1979. She has worked in the public and voluntary sectors, including at a women's refuge and for a Member of Parliament. Katie lives in Suffolk with her husband and cat.