Practice

Six o''clock in the morning, Sunday, at the worn-out end of January.

In a small room in an Oxford college, cold and dim and full of quiet, an undergraduate student works on an essay about Shakespeare''s sonnets.

Annabel has a meticulously planned routine for her day - work, yoga, meditation, long walks; no apples after meals, no coffee on an empty stomach - but finds it repeatedly thrown off course. Despite her efforts, she cannot stop her thoughts slipping off their intended track into the shadows of elaborate erotic fantasies.

And as the essay''s deadline looms, so too does the irrepressible presence of other people: Annabel''s boyfriend Rich, keen to come and visit her; her family and friends who demand her attention; and darker crises, obliquely glimpsed, all threatening to disturb the much-cherished quiet in her mind.

Exquisitely crafted, wryly comic, and completely original, Practice is a novel about the life of the mind and the life of the body, about the repercussions of a rigid routine and the deep pleasures of literature.