Big, two-hearted novel

There's nothing quite like a few days off in springtime and the coincidental discovery of a great book. It's something like winning the lottery without all the worries about finding a scrupulous lawyer.

"Sacred Hunger" by British novelist Barry Unsworth tells a story about 18th century slave trade, ranging from London to Africa to Florida.

The book puts this huge history onto a Liverpool-built two-master and into the personalities and power relations of a few characters you come to love or hate or at times have mixed feelings about.

"Sacred Hunger" takes more than 600 pages to tell the tale but you can't put it down and then you don't want it to end.

It makes you wish you'd read it when it was first published 16 years ago. It makes you wish you could make it required reading for the world.