23/08/13: Michèle Roberts – Paper Houses: A Memoir of the '70s and Beyond (2007)

Not many books could contain all of these sentences:

1. "All my life as a writer I have loved the semicolon."

2. "I had seen Suzy Seven-Up in a bar on Patpong smoking seven cigarettes through her c*** at once: I showed Bertie that I could do the same."

3. "I was so terrified I shat my trousers."

4. "Goodness: I'd become a lesbian."

5. "I could watch the sunset melt into blue-grey night, pick out the coiled lazy snake of the motorway, creased and glittering with cars, the oblongs of tower-blocks pitted with gold. Above me, jets trailed jewels."

The author writes nicely, whether it's on the wonders of working as a librarian at the British Museum or detailing her various London flats and the people she shared them with, and there are some very evocative passages: "In summer, people kept their long fron windows open to the night, rectangles of gold releasing the hot clatter of jazz."

She takes herself very seriously – not necessarily a bad thing. As an insight into life in London in the 1970s, this is a fascinating and rewarding read.