Stuart Crossman

A funny but heart-wrenching account of having a manic-depressive father in the family, by a former editor of the Sunday Express. Covering mainly the 1960s, when there was a real stigma attached to mental illness, the story is told through the eyes of a young son who spends his life walking on eggshells.

It’s 1957 and Lewis Aldridge, 19 years old and straight out of jail, is travelling home. His return will trigger the implosion not just of his family, but of a whole community. Kit Carmichael, aware of Lewis’s grief and rage, makes a vow to help. But in her attempts to set them both free, she fails to predict the painful and horrifying secrets that must first be forced into the open. Richard & Judy Bookclub

The story of a pre-war film director who becomes obsessed with a film project entitled ‘Ordinary’. The character is based on the surrealist Humphrey Jennings, a founder of the Mass Observation project – an anthropological study of the British people.