Heaven

Richard Wright

The idea of heaven - as a perfect place where God lives and where you end up if you live right - is an essential part of our life, our dreams, our hopes. There is no perfect proof of heaven, but the idea lives: there is an archetypal image of heaven in our mind and we recognise this image again and again in art: paintings, music and poetry; and in the magical moments of life: love, birth and death.

Sting: Fields of Gold

Muriel Spark

In this sophisticated book nothing is accidental, everything appears as part of a system, in a pair, a contrast, a symmetry. Any details provide the metaphor of the entire book itself, the same way as the junior girls carry their adult fate. The characters are archetypes and individuals simultaneously. The consistent presence of number 7 increases the presence of a fate: 7 students, 7 teachers, and through 7 years we observe their road: their blossoming youth in the full prime of Miss Brodie between 1931-1938.

And what a clear, exact, economical language!

A brilliant book, an extraordinary writer!