The Newsagent's Window

This charming tale of finding a community in a world of internet connections and fast-moving city lives and fear and suspicion is a wonderful look at people and the small ripple effects they have on each other's lives. John Osborne, poet and writer, returns from Vienna to live in Norwich, where he went to university. Finding himself in an unfurnished flat with not even a bed to sleep on, he takes to answering adverts in newsagent windows. Bed - check, cutlery - check, toaster - check... Beaver uniform - check? As with books of this sort, a man's obsessive nature leads him to an unhealthy place that he needs to break through.

Osborne is wry and sweet, happily embarrassing himself with tales of psychic masseuses offering him life lessons while he sits in his pants, inheriting a huge VHS collection and working through it to feel closer to the previous owner, buying a car he doesn't need till it becomes his albatross. Each adventure leads him to a person whose items have a tale to tell about them and whose inheritance leads Osborne to discover something about his own humanity. It's an utterly charming and funny book, powering through loneliness and solitude to the building of communities all through the community newsagent window.