Name: Gillian

Reading: A Time in Rome, Elizabeth Bowen

Why did you want to read this? I wanted to read A Time in Rome because Rome is my first city, in every sense (I went aged 17 and lived there for six months; I’d never been out of England before), and Elizabeth Bowen is a peerless writer, a near favourite. Yet I only discovered it before my most recent visit. 1959, 2018, same Rome.

How did you record yourself? I recorded myself on Voice Memos on my iPhone, in a nice soft armchair in a carpeted room with the door shut. I struggled how to share the recording but, with persistence, did it!