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Books

If you don’t think this novel is practically perfect, I’ll send you a replacement

A review of Lila, by Marilynne Robinson. A book that makes you feel newly in love with the world

4 October 2014

9:00 AM

4 October 2014

9:00 AM

Lila Marilynne Robinson

Virago, pp.272, £16.99

If there were a harvest festival to honour the bounty of the autumnal book crop, the choir would be in especially good voice this year. There is much cause for rejoicing, with work from Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, Will Self, Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, Ali Smith, Sarah Waters. Oddly enough in these secular days, a bookish vicar could glean a sermon from any one of three new novels — by Ian McEwan, Michel Faber and Marilynne Robinson — in each of which the Bible is central.

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