Emotionally Weird - Kate Atkinson

An exceptionally playful story-within-a-story which takes self-reference to extremes - the narrative is altered in response to interjections from the audience, and when life imitates art, a disaster can be undone by destroying the page where it was described. Being partially set in a university English department provides further opportunities to discuss and experiment with narrative structures and the nature of the text, but it's all done in an accessible and light-hearted way. There is mystery and intrigue in abundance - as well as a detective story being written by a central character - providing an amusing comment on Atkinson's later work (crimewriting is "the least reputable genre" which can only be made respectable by pretending it's "a postmodernist kind of thing these days"). Great fun.