A Prayer for Owen Meany

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Meet our Fiction Forum panellist:

Kate Calder, 28, a home economists and stylist, is orginally from Toronto, Canada, but now lives in London. 'I can't relax and settle at night unless I have something to read,' she says. 'I like a good, grippling storyline, vivid descriptions and quirky, eccentric characters.'

'I first read A Prayer for Owen Meany when I was about 16 and loved it,' says Kate. 'It's the kind of book you can't forget and keep dipping into. Whenever I see a copy in bookshop, I have to pick it up and read a bit becasue it always make me smile.'

For Kate, the appeal is in Irving's offbeat style. 'His books always have eccentric characters with dark secrets,' she explains.

'And Owen's such a memorable and weird character. He's extremely small and has a strange tiny voice - in fact, he has to shout through his nose to be heard. But he's also very serious and wise. It's a really spiritual book with a heartbreaking but happy ending.'

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