The unkindest cut Sarah Anderson’s poignant memoir Halfway to Venus describes life with one arm gone, says Andrew Barrow The author of this fascinating odyssey is better known as the founder of the Travel Bookshop, made famous in the film Notting Hill, than for losing an arm to cancer at the age of 10. Never … Read more
Tuck your thumb between your second and middle finger, sit down in a Turkish cafe, and those you are with may either thump or laugh at you. You’re making as obvious and vulgar gesture in their culture as giving them the finger. This trait of mine is something that runs in families, I now learn, … Read more
‘My mother closed the door and turned towards me, and without saying anything, she made a chopping motion with her right hand above her left elbow. I thought my world had come to an end.’ So I’m wittering on about knitting and quilting on the same day that I am reading Sarah Anderson’s truly remarkable … Read more