The Correspondent: A life in letters and the things we leave behind

Every now and then a book makes you want to dig out a good pen and some proper writing paper. The Correspondent did that for both of us.

The story is told almost entirely through the letters of Sybil Van Antwerp, a retired lawyer in her seventies. She has written letters all her life to friends, family, authors she admires and a few people who probably wish she hadn't.

Sybil is opinionated and independent and at times hard work. She can be sharp and she isn't always fair. We liked her all the more for it. She's funny, flawed and very real.

Letter by letter you piece together her life. The friendships, the family rifts, the regrets and the things she never quite managed to say.

Time runs through the whole book. Sybil is getting older, her health is changing and the past keeps catching up with her. Watching a woman who has always had the right words struggle to find them for the things that matter most is very moving.

We loved how much the book values letter writing. Most of what we send now is quick: a text, an email between meetings, an emoji. A letter takes longer. You choose your words, you take your time and you can say things you might not manage face to face.

A letter can also be kept. It can sit in a drawer for years and then be found and read again, and suddenly the person who wrote it is back in the room with their jokes and their opinions.

That matters to us at huunuu. Our journals, books and My Words To You letter-writing kit are there to help people write down the things they want others to know. It doesn't have to be anything grand. A favourite story, a thank you, an apology, some advice or simply telling someone what they mean to you. And there's no need to wait until you're older to start.

Clare's thoughts

I read this book eagerly, following the twists and turns, the people and the eras. What a beautiful art we have, literally at our fingertips.

All the way through I kept thinking I'd like to be more like Sybil. There are people dear to me who I don't want to send a text or an email. I want them to know I really took the time to sit down, stop and think about them and share a bit of life's colour. And I want them to stop what they're doing to read what I've written.

Then my mind went to my auntie on the other side of the world, whose eyesight is failing. A handwritten letter wouldn't be fair on her. So I've settled on typing it up in a clear font, enlarging it and printing it off.

For all of Sybil's letters sent and received, and for post in general, there's something lovely about it not being instant. I think that makes it a bit more permanent, more engraved in that moment in time.

So send a letter to someone you love. Let your mind slow down and enjoy the space.

Cherry's thoughts

It's a beautiful, funny and quietly emotional book about ageing, connection, forgiveness and the extraordinary legacy of ordinary words.

I have a box of old letters sitting quietly at home. An anthology of care and gratitude. Letters from people who took the time to sit down, pick up a pen and write to me, and to whom I wrote in return. Each one captures a moment in time, a friendship, a feeling, a little piece of life that might otherwise have slipped away. And what a gift they are.

So Sybil, with her ballsy, deliciously opinionated letters are a nod to the permanance of memories and moments in time and space. That something written in an afternoon can take you to a place decades later. That memories, people and places can live on in the pages we keep...and will write.

And perhaps that's the real magic of a letter. It doesn't just tell someone you're thinking of them. It leaves a little piece of you behind.