Two beautiful, memorable novels in one volume, both focussing on women who retreat into their imaginations until the boundaries between what is real and what is not become blurred. In `Reading Turgenev', which was shortlisted for the 1991 Booker Prize, an Irish country girl is trapped in a loveless marriage with an older man. But she finds unusual solace - in secret meetings with a man who shares her passion for Russian novels ... The second story, `My House in Umbria' tells how romantic novelist Emily Delahunty helps the survivors of a bomb attack on a train and invents colourful pasts for her convalescent patients.