Books

• Russell Banks: Rule of the Bone

  (HarperPerennial 1996 edition)
  Chappie (‘Bone’) is 14 and a drug dealer. Fed up with living with his mother and abusive stepfather in a trailer he runs away from home. He lives instead in the crazy world of his best friend and an unpredictable biker gang. He befriends an abused girl called Froggy and tries to free her, as well as help his friend I-man, a Rastafarian migrant worker get back home. But Bone finds it impossible to find a family where he can put down roots and make a home.

• Mark Billingham: Lifeless

  (Sphere: 2012)
  Detective Tom Thorne goes undercover on the street to try and find out who is killing homeless people. He befriends two young addicts and discovers how people look out for each other on the street as well as how they live.

• Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, Home

  (Virago 2006, 2009)
  Two works about themes of returning home and what home means, and what happens when the Prodigal son returns. Is ‘home’ the balm in Gilead?

• Meghan Daum, Life Would be Perfect if I Lived in that House

  (Vintage: 2011 edition)
  A personal journey through an obsession with houses

• Craig Storti, The Art of Coming Home

  (Intercultural Press, 2001)
  A book describing the difficulties faced by people coming home from living abroad, including a section on missionaries.