The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken

Please read this book (also recommended in The Times' best books of 2023 so far). A not-memoir, a travelogue, a woman missing her mother, why has @elizmccrack only just come into my life?

This book is so unique and wonderful, I can't say much about it without spoiling it. I recommended it to about a hundred people before I even finished it. Briefly, an American writer retraces a holiday in London that she had with her with her mum, after her mother has died.

This book triggered such a warmth in me, it starts off near my offices so it was hard not to love it immediately. It is funny, kind, and unbelievably heartbreaking. I was reading it and drinking in the sun and marvelling at what a fabulous writer McCracken is. And then suddenly, it was the end and I became completely overwhelmed and cried.

A daughter writing about the death of her mother. There is nothing sadder.