*As read on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week* 'A genius for a certain kind of social history that, in shining a light on one small place, illuminates a huge amount' Sunday Telegraph A toy train. A stack of letters. A tiny pulse glass, inherited from her great-great-grandfather, which was used to time a patient's heartbeat before pocket watches... Gillian Tindall, one of our most admired domestic history writers, examines seemingly humble objects to trace the personal and global memories stored within them, and re-animate the ghostly heartbeats of lost lives. 'Elegiac... Tindall reflects on a lifetime's interest in historical recovery' The Telegraph 'Tindall is a fine historian and writes with a wryness of everyday human foibles' The Times