Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad

A London mum and Iraqi teacher should have nothing in common. Yet now, despite their differences, they''re the firmest of friends . . . Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit is a touching and poignant portrait of an unlikely friendship.

Would you brave gun-toting militias for a cut and blow dry?

May''s a tough-talking, hard-smoking, lecturer in English. She''s also an Iraqi from a Sunni-Shi''ite background living in Baghdad, dodging bullets before breakfast, bargaining for high heels in bombed-out bazaars and battling through blockades to reach her class of Jane Austen-studying girls. Bee, on the other hand, is a London mum of three, busy fighting off PTA meetings and chicken pox, dealing with dead cats and generally juggling work and family while squabbling with her globe-trotting husband over the socks he leaves lying around the house.

They should have nothing in common.

But when a simple email brings them toge