The woman opposite us on the bus was playing a podcast out loud on her phone. Its host gave an enthusiastic review of An instance of the fingerpost by Iain Pears.

‘I hated that book’, I muttered to my sister J, who was seated next to me.

It was our fellow passenger, however, who replied.

‘But it’s great!’ she said.

J then joined the conversation with an apology for my ‘rude remark’.

The woman was stumped when I asked her why she liked the book so much. She eventually admitted that she’d only read the first three pages and the second half of the final chapter.