If you still have bonds with childhood friends even though you've taken different directions, this book will resonate profoundly. Its easy and thoughtful evocation of two talented women making careers and relationships across decades and continents is quietly astonishing. Perceptive, vanity-puncturing and unexpectedly hopeful.
Today it was Hampstead Heath, a decision reflected in their choice of footwear - badly scuffed olive-green Hunters for Maryam, who saw no need to part with anything in her wardrobe once she'd reached a relationship of comfort with it, and gleaming black slim-fit Scandinavian wellies for Zahra, who didn't like the snobbery associated with any of the upmarket rain-boots, so found a pair that cost as much but had a logo that was unrecognisable to almost everyone in London. She'd expected teasing from Maryam about it and had been disconcerted to receive an approving 'good thinking - you don't want to damage your brand' instead.
