The right book at the right time, by Peter Leyland
The right book at the right time In November we lost my brother-in-law, Nicky, quite suddenly - a stroke from which it seemed that he would never wake up. My sister-in-law, my wife’s sister Pen, said she had felt that he was ‘slipping away’. Yet he was a fit and active man, still working as a market gardener, and he had once been the proud owner of two Clydesdales, named Tommy and Morgan, draught horses that he had cared for for many years until their own deaths; so I was surprised and shocked for he was only six months older than I am. In August this year my wife and I had been with both him and Pen, choosing books at Logie Steading in Scotland, a bookstore where he had once himself worked part-time. I had chosen a few books during that visit, although they were not books that were particularly memorable; and this would have had no consequence except that following my brother-in-law’s death, I needed something which would ground me in my understanding of what this loss might mea...