Carina Buckley, instructional design manager, Southampton Solent University, is reading Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend (Europa Editions, 2012). “The friendship between Lila and Elena is compelling, competitive and all-encompassing, the touchstone of Elena’s life, and the reader can’t help but be drawn in. But although we are urged on by the breathless writing style and rich layers of details, delicious and complex, this is a book that leaves the reader as stupefied and dazed as a huge bowl of pasta.”