In her twenties Esther Rutter suffered a mental breakdown. As she tried to put herself back together – listlessly wondering what to do with her life – she took a job working in the Lake District at Dove Cottage – home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. This fine memoir details how she got on during her year working there – as a tour guide and tending to everything else that needed doing in and around the place. Rutter had previously studied literature at university, specialising in the Romantics, and so here she is able to intersperse her account with informative biographical details about William and his sister Dorothy, as well as figures such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth led a movement that examined our place in the world as regards to what we see and feel about everything around us – call it our spirit – and the spiritual healing that Rutter undergoes here is genuinely moving and, ultimately, uplifting. RM

Published by Granta