So it should have been perfect. But the chill of an evaporated classicism drove my heart from that book. Sebastian Barry's latest novel, A Thousand Moons, is published by Faber on March 19 at £18.99.

It literally rocks your head back, with its sudden truth and its originality. Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture is one of the 20 titles for World Book Night 2013, www.worldbooknight.org.

Viking, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-670-02292-2 Lilly Bere is an 89-year-old retired cook living in the Hamptons in Long Island in Irish writer Barry's latest novel (after The Secret Scripture).