The Penguin book of elegy Historical mysteries ‘Useful to Us’ examines the

‘Useful to Us’ examines the ways we find birds of value

as hearty and explicit as good Calvados' The New York Times Book ReviewWith an introduction by James Salter

Through their parallel experience of love - and its threatened loss - the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love

armed with the knowledge needed to become a well-rounded human being

and notes on plant origins

The Penguin book of elegy Historical mysteries ‘Useful to Us’ examines theElegy is among the world's oldest forms of literature: a continuous poetic tradition which stretches back beyond the time of Virgil and Horace to Ancient Greece, speaking eloquently and movingly of the experience of loss and the yearning for consolation. In perhaps the purest instance of art's fundamental 'impulse to preserve' (Philip Larkin), it gives shape and meaning to memories too painful to contemplate for long, and answers our desire to fix in