Outside the rain is falling in stair rods.

"Outside the rain is falling in stair rods. But in Athill’s room, all is cosiness. There is a bed, a desk on which stands her battered laptop and a comfortable armchair in which Athill sits, a handsome woman, her striking profile framed by a halo of silver hair, elegantly dressed in a brown-linen trouser suit. The two hundred or so books she eventually deemed as 'necessities' are arranged in a case – the collected works of Chekhov, the letters of Lord Byron and the first editions by V S Naipaul, Jean Rhys, Margaret Atwood and Brian Moore"

Excerpt from Mick Brown's Interview with Diana Athill
The Telegraph