Ammonites and Leaping Fish, by Penelope Lively, review Apart from the collapse of Communism in Europe, the two most significant and positive changes she has witnessed in her lifetime are "the expectations of women, and attitudes towards homosexuality," both of which she writes about in a nicely anecdotal manner. Time, Lively observes, alters everything, while remaining "impersonal, indifferent: it neither knows nor cares." We nevertheless "have this one majestic, sustaining weapon, this small triumph over time - memory." How memory operates (or fails to operate), the forms it takes, the sense it gives us of "then folded into now," is the subject of an absorbing investigation, leading to a description of how her novels were prompted by things she has seen, recalled or read. Reading provides a sense of history, and Lively champions both, for without them we remain "afloat, untethered." Lively also argues for "the eloquence of objects" and ends with a consideration of what six things mean to her. In an 18th-century sampler, "a feisty little stitched black dog stands out, demanding attention from 1788," while a fragment of Egyptian pottery depicting two fishes is eloquent "because it says that a potter a thousand years ago had seen fish leap, because it has travelled through time and space like this, fetching up in 21st-century London, a signal from elsewhere." Among Lively's physical diminishments is myopic macular degeneration, but as a writer she remains clear-sighted and able to pounce upon the smallest, most telling detail with unerring accuracy. She has a true writer's relish for how words are used, whether revelling in the 17th-century cadences of Sir Thomas Browne's Urne-Buriall or neatly skewering the self-aggrandisement of military rhetoric: "'I am fighting a terrific battle with Rommel," writes Montgomery, sidelining a few hundred thousand others." If, as she claims, this enjoyable book is "not quite a memoir," it is about time and memory, which give us our sense of who we are. Ammonites and Leaping Fish, by Penelope Lively 240pp, Fig Tree, Telegraph Books price £13.99 (PLUS £1.35 p&p) 0844 871 1515 (RRP £14.99 EBook £10.34)