Books by Toby Litt

A Writer''s Diary is a novel that blends fact and fiction, invention and memoir with joyful creativity and remarkable literary ambition. In it, Toby Litt takes on some of the biggest questions of life and death, not to mention literary as well as human mortality and the steady march of time. At first, A Writer''s Diary appears to be exactly what it claims to be. It is a daily summary of the events in a person called Toby Litt''s life: his thoughts on creating literature, his concerns for his family and the people he teaches, his musings on the various things that catch his attention around his desk and his immediate surroundings... But as it progresses, questions start to arise. Is this fact? Or is it fiction? (And if it''s both, which is which?) Is this a book about quotidian daily routines - one person''s days as they unspool - or is something more going on? Is there something even larger taking shape? ... And so, seemingly by magic, an increasingly urgent narrative starts to build - a

Elliott is something of a genius. More than that, Elliott is an ideal friend, and to know him is to adore him. But few people do know Elliott, because he is also stuck. He lives in a wheelchair in an orphanage. It''s 1979. Elliott is forced to spend his days in an empty corridor, either gazing out of the window at the birds in a tree or staring into a white wall wherever the Catholic Sisters who run the ward have decided to park him. So when Jim, blind and mute but also headstrong, arrives on the ward and begins to defy the Sisters'' restrictive rules, Elliott finally sees a chance for escape.