What is the secret to true friendship? Is it really loves quieter relation or something stronger and more profound? And where does the line between the two lie? Rose Tremain looks at two unlikely lifelong friendships, which though tested prove unbreakable. Thought-provoking and life-affirming, this is at once an examination and a celebration of friendship in all its glorious complexity.

Selected from the booksRestorationandThe Gustav Sonataby Rose Tremain

VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.

A series of short books by the worlds greatest writers on the experiences that make us human

Also in the Vintage Minis series: Loveby Jeanette Winterson Languageby Xiaolu Guo Desireby Haruki Murakami Freedomby Margaret Atwood

Rose Tremains novels and short stories have been published in thirty countries and have won several awards, including the Orange Prize (The Road Home), the Dylan Thomas Award(The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories),the Whitbread Novel of the Year (Music&Silence) and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Sacred Country). Her most recent novel,The Gustav Sonata, was aSunday TimesTop Ten Bestseller. It won the National Jewish Book Award in the US, the South Bank Sky Arts Award in the UK and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award. Rose Tremain was made a CBE in 2007. She lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer, Richard Holmes.

www.rosetremain.co.uk