Sixty Lights

Gail Jones

This is a wonderful read, exploding with light and perception. There are 60 short chapters, each capturing a precise moment in the story like a snapshot. The detail is absolutely sharp and in focus. Yet it encompasses three continents, a wide range of characters and a whole (short) lifetime. The short chapters are deceptive - take your time to savour this feast for the brain and the senses.

Extract

Years later, too, Lucy flicked through her diary of 'Special Things Seen,' and saw that on her first day at work in the albumen factory she had left at four o'clock in the afternoon, and recorded that the sky was the colour of a sheet of photographic paper, drenched in egg-white, a bright screen, gleaming lightly as it hung out to dry.

Parallels