Quote of the day

"The wind's year-long whisper
has worn the leaves thin.
Thet turn from their branches,
lend the river a skin.

An easy-flexing eczema,
a dead, patched complexion.
Their beauty is in the falling,
their has-been, their never again."

'Leavings', the closing poem from Owen Sheers' first volume of poetry 'The Blue Book'.

With its reflective and elegiac tone, no wonder Andrew Motion was quick to claim him as one of the stars of the future shortly before the turn of the millennium. And now his debut novel 'Resistance', about an alternative 1944 in which half of Britain is under German occupation, is due to be published by Faber next month - should be a good read.