This novel is set in present day London. Though fairly short at 229 pages, it is ambitiously complex, juggling subplots starring seven principle characters. We begin at “the pavement rises up and hits her,” as elderly, widowed Charlotte is knocked to the ground in a mugging, breaking her hip. The...
I read a book by this author as a book club read and wasn't thrilled. I then heard her talk about this book on NPR and was intrigued. I love this lady and would love to buy her tea and just listen to her talk. This isn't an exciting page turner, but a thoughtful mental journey through her life...
I have come to believe that anything Penelope Lively has written is well worth reading. Even though fiction is more my line than autobiography, this memoir tackles the pertinent questions of memory, reading and objects. The penultimate sentence -- "There is a further dimension to memory; it is no...
*** THIS REVIEW IS FULL OF SPOILERS ***The Photograph was one of those books that initially it may appear to be somewhat dull and boring, but what a great read it turned out to be. Penelope does a great character study of Kath and the impact that those around her had on her life. In the process...
"Making It Up" would be a great book choice for a long weekend at the cabin. The short story format (8 in all) makes book easy to pick up and set down (and think about, and re-read, and then come back again...). My favorites of the series:(1) The Mozambique Channel (About falling in love on a s...
Consequences: Something Logical or Naturally That Follows, 28 Jul 2007 4.5 stars "Consequences: Something that logically or naturally follows from an action or condition. The relation of a result to its cause. A logical conclusion or inference." Dictonarly.com "The women are buffeted by events bu...
I don't understand why this book does not appear in toplists. Agreed, it was awarded the Bookerprice in 1987 (before the great hypes), but seems to be forgotten since, whilst according to me it really is a pearl.Maybe it is because the story appears to be a kind of pulp fiction: that of a remarka...
Mark Lamming è un biografo, carriera che non gli garantisce la stabilità economica ma che soddisfa le sue ambizioni letterarie. Anche nella vita privata non può che ritenersi appagato: sposato con la bella e intelligente Diana, che lavora in una galleria d'arte e lo bilancia con il suo carattere ...
"At age sixty-five, retired anthropologist Stella Brentwood buys a cottage in Somerset, England, and slowly acquires neighbors, a dog, and a professional curiosity about the country village where she intends to settle and put down roots for the first time. She has spent her life studying communi...
"Judgment Day takes us into the life of Clare Paling, who has just moved with her family to Laddenham, a seemingly drowsy village enlivened by sideshows of adultery and gossip. An avowed agnostic who has a preoccupation with the savagery of fate, Clare is nonetheless caught up in the restoration...
"Happiness, of course, is forever bound to place, to the physical world. We are never happy now, only then. Walking then on a Dorset hill, wind lifting the hair, and a hand, suddenly, on one's back ...Sunlight sifting down through the apple tree in the garden of Pulborough, lying like coins amon...
He resisted it, burrowing against Kate’s warm back. He felt her reach out, bang the clock, lie in disquieting wakefulness. She said, ‘Tom?’ He burrowed again.She sat up, the sheet slipping from her bare breasts. ‘Do wake up. Listen, I’ve been thinking. I shall have to take you to see my mother.’‘...
Pauline, Teresa, Maurice and Luke are gathered together in the open-plan kitchen of Teresa’s cottage. Teresa is talking to Luke – the murmuring pigeon-talk of a mother to a baby – inconsequential chatter to an adult ear, a luminous revelation to the baby. ‘There we are …’ ...
He lives in his white stucco house in an expensive postcode, and goes forth to his club in Pall Mall, to Wiltons or Rules, to Covent Garden (a couple of times a year), to the Royal Academy and the Tate and the British Library and the British Museum. He visits the House of Lords less and less freq...
‘So what did you do after that at — it can’t have taken you all day?’‘We had lunch in that restaurant in South Kensington.’‘It doesn’t exist any more.’‘Exactly,’ said Helen. ‘So we discovered. We had lunch on its ashes, as it were. Then we went shopping.’‘Well! Quite a spree! Very good for you bo...
Where are you?” “I’m at home,” says Gina. “Paul, it’s nearly midnight. You never ring at a civilized hour.” “Because you don’t answer then, do you? And you’re too busy in pursuit of news to call back. Or you’re on the other side of the world. OK—I’ll go.” “Don’t,” says Gina. “As it happens, I’m n...
Without flower-beds, and furnished entirely with trees and shrubs that were clearly more or less indestructible, it was not at all the kind of garden in which you are being forever told not to step on the flowers or climb the trees. The huge, dank shrubbery that separated it from the next-door ga...