Special delivery

A copy of Ben Myers' new novel The Offing was already on my shopping list, and when he tweeted that he'd left signed copies at the bookshop of Borders business the Mainstreet Trading Company, the appropriate course of action seemed obvious: a way of simultaneously supporting a small-scale independent no doubt facing an uncertain future in the current climate and an author whose novel The Gallows Pole blew me away. An email about availability, a quick phone call to pay and some exemplary customer service later, and my parcel arrived.

With puffs describing it as a book "full of warmth and kindness" and "with a winning generosity of spirit", The Offing promises to be a very different beast to The Gallows Pole - but perhaps precisely what's needed in the present circumstances.