Six months after the death of JD Salinger in 2010, the toilet from his former home in Cornish, New Hampshire, went up for sale on eBay for one million American dollars. The advertisement claimed that the toilet was ‘uncleaned and in its original condition’. It also speculated that Salinger might have dreamed up and even written some of his unpublished work while sitting on this ‘throne’.

My pick of non-fiction books is, as you would expect, mostly a reflection of my own particular obsessions and interests. However, one of the pleasures of being a regular reviewer of non-fiction books is the discovery of gems you would not otherwise have stumbled across or even thought were your thing. One such discovery was […]

And yet something wasn't quite right. There was no wind and an eerie stillness hung over the place. The rambling weatherboard homestead that Judith grew up in was long gone, replaced by a large 1970s-style brown brick house that lay unoccupied. It was owned by a family who visited only occasionally, leaving a manager to look after day-to-day affairs.