Sebastian Faulks tells us in the introduction to Fires Which Burned Brightly that he was reluctant to write a memoir in the conventional sense but hopes that this varied selection of stories, reflections and glimpses will serve as some sort of record of a world of experience: ‘At some point after the pandemic I became aware that people of a younger generation were struggling to understand what I was saying. It was as if the stars by which I’d always steered now belonged to a different sky.’

Most people born in the long shadow of two European wars and into a world of huge cultural and technological change will recognise this feeling. Faulks recalls a more chancy, ramshackle, unscripted era – pre-internet, pre-smoking ban, pre-smartphones, pre-bicycle helmets and pre-diversity quotas – that seems both startlingly familiar and yet already strange. Despite Faulks’s engagingly cheery energy, and his zest for discovery and new experiences, there is a mist of melancholy hanging over the enterprise. One can see why he was keen not to write a straightforward memoir: at seventy-two, his novel-writing career has drawn him deep into the past; when you carry an awareness of the big picture, there is surely never a final chapter.

The ten essays in the book are somewhat uneven and, though broadly chronological, swing about discursively – and enjoyably so. Usually, the author writes in the present tense, but at one point he turns to the third person, as though experimenting with a fictional character based on himself. We start