A Nonfiction Night

Linda Spalding read tonight from her new book "Who Named the Knife: A Book of Murder and Memory". It focuses on a murder in Hawaii, where she was living at the time, but it also focuses on the murder's aftermath. Astonishingly.

So it was ironically appropriate that Caryl Phillips, known to us as Caz, read from his forthcoming book, Foreigners, a piece about a Nigerian homeless man in Leeds, a man who might well have been killed by the local police. Beyond that Caz read a terrifically moving piece of autobiography - in 10 chapters as he said - each about as long as the blink of an eye. But it was about as moving as a piece of work could be.

And all the way home we listened to Bruce Springsteen singing "I came for you."

Cheers to all.