Name: Rebecca

Reading: Look at Me, Anita Brookner

Why did you want to read this? Brookner opens 'Look at Me' with a series of close readings of the history of the representation of sickness and madness in art. This has a quality of non-fiction (and reflects Brookner's other life as an art historian) but she also manages to convey so much about her narrator, Frances Hinton. Her isolation, self-estrangement, reticence and rage; her sense of her life's smallness and unfairness. 

How did you record yourself? Sitting in bed with my cat, who I was afraid could be heard purring in the recording.