The material was not natural and soft.

For decades, Amy ran. Through the dirt roads of Amarillo, Texas, where she grew up; to the streets of New York, where she built her adult life; through marriage, motherhood, and a thriving career. To outsiders, it all looked, in many ways, perfect. But Amy was running from something – a secret she was keeping not only from her family and friends, but unconsciously from something terrible in her past. When her ten-year-old daughter confronts her on the distance between them, Amy is propelled to confront what she has spent a lifetime trying to escape. So begins Amy’s journey.

Waterstone's book of the year. Colum McCann once called Stoner one of the great forgotten novels of the past century, but it seems it is forgotten no longer - in 2013, translations of Stoner began appearing on best-seller lists across Europe. William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at 19 to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman.