The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735222053
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories written by Penelope Lively and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A glimmering collection of new short fiction from the Booker Prize winner. “Lively writes with an astringent blend of sympathy and detachment, emotional wisdom and satiric wit.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times In such acclaimed novels as The Photograph, Family Album, and How It All Began, Penelope Lively has captivated readers with her singular blend of wisdom, elegance, and humor. Now, in her first story collection in decades, Lively takes up themes of history, family, and relationships across varied and vividly rendered settings. In the title story, a Mediterranean purple swamp hen chronicles the secrets and scandals of Quintus Pompeius’s villa, culminating with his narrow escape from the lava and ash of Vesuvius. “Abroad” captures the low point of an artist couple’s tumultuous European road trip, trapped in a remote Spanish farmhouse and forced to paint a family mural and pitch in with chores to pay for repairs to their broken-down car. Other stories reveal friends and lovers in fateful moments of indiscretion, discovery, and even retribution—as in “The Third Wife,” when a woman learns her husband is a serial con artist and turns a house-hunting trip into an elaborately staged revenge trap. Each of these delightful stories is elevated by Lively’s signature graceful prose and eye for the subtle yet powerfully evocative detail. Wry, charming, and keenly insightful, The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories is a masterful achievement from one of our most beloved writers.

Family Album

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101140771
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Family Album by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Family Album written by Penelope Lively and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-10-29 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this haunting new novel, the act of forgetting is as strange and interesting as the power of remembering." —The New York Times Book Review Look out for Penelope Lively’s new book, The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories. Penelope Lively is renowned for her signature combination of silken storytelling and nuanced human insights. In Family Album, lively masterfully peels back one family's perfect façade to reveal the unsettling truths. All Alison ever wanted was to provide her six children with a blissful childhood. Its creation, however, became an obsession that involved Ingrid, the family au pair. As adults, Paul, Gina, Sandra, Katie, Roger, and Clare return to their family home and as mysteries begin to unravel, each must confront how the consequences of long-held secrets have shaped their lives.

How It All Began

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101565756
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis How It All Began by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book How It All Began written by Penelope Lively and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-01-05 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vibrant new novel from Penelope Lively—a wry, wise story about the surprising ways lives intersect Look out for Penelope Lively’s new book, The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories. When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the consequences ripple across the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. A marriage unravels after an illicit love affair is revealed through an errant cell phone message; a posh yet financially strapped interior designer meets a business partner who might prove too good to be true; an old-guard historian tries to recapture his youthful vigor with an ill-conceived idea for a TV miniseries; and a middle-aged central European immigrant learns to speak English and reinvents his life with the assistance of some new friends. Through a richly conceived and colorful cast of characters, Penelope Lively explores the powerful role of chance in people's lives and deftly illustrates how our paths can be altered irrevocably by someone we will never even meet. Brought to life in her hallmark graceful prose and full of keen insights into human nature, How It All Began is an engaging, contemporary tale that is sure to strike a chord with her legion of loyal fans as well as new readers. A writer of rare wisdom, elegance, and humor, Lively is a consummate storyteller whose gifts are on full display in this masterful work.

Uninvited Ghosts and Other Stories

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780749707880
Total Pages : 119 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis Uninvited Ghosts and Other Stories by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Uninvited Ghosts and Other Stories written by Penelope Lively and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Moon Tiger

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Author :
Publisher : Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 080219737X
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (21 download)

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Book Synopsis Moon Tiger by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Moon Tiger written by Penelope Lively and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A powerful, moving and beautifully wrought novel about the ways in which lives are molded by personal memory and the collective past.” —The Boston Globe Winner of the Man Booker Prize Elderly, uncompromising Claudia Hampton lies in a London hospital bed with memories of life fluttering through her fading consciousness. An author of popular history, Claudia proclaims she’s carrying out her last project: a history of the world. This history turns out to be a mosaic of her life, her own story tangled with those of her brother, her lover and father of her daughter, and the center of her life, Tom, her one great love found and lost in war-torn Egypt. Always the independent woman, often with contentious relationships, Claudia’s personal history is complex and fascinating. As people visit Claudia, they shake and twist the mosaic, changing speed, movement, and voice, to reveal themselves and Claudia’s impact on their world. “Emotionally, Moon Tiger is kaleidoscopic, deeply satisfying. The all too brief encounter between Claudia and Tom will surely rate as one of the most memorable of contemporary fictional affairs. This is one of the best novels I have read for years.” —The London Sunday Telegraph “It pulls us in; it engages us and saddens us. It is also unexpectedly funny . . . It leaves its traces in the air long after you’ve put it away.” —The New York Times Book Review “One of the very best Booker winners . . . it asks hard questions about memory and history and personal legacy; it’s stylistically demanding and inventive . . . a wonderful book.” —The Guardian

Passing On

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Author :
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 0802197345
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (21 download)

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Book Synopsis Passing On by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Passing On written by Penelope Lively and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Man Booker Prize–winning author “charts the efforts of a middle-aged brother and sister to begin a new life after their tyrannical mother’s death” (The New York Times). In Passing On, “the richest and most rewarding of her novels,” Penelope Lively applies her distinctive insight and consummate artistry to the story of an abusive and manipulative mother’s legacy to her children (The Washington Post Book World). When Dorothy Glover dies, ending her reign of terror, siblings Helen and Edward Daimler, both middle-aged and unmarried, are left ill equipped to move forward and lead their own healthy, independent lives. But as time passes, the two slowly learn to accept what has been lost in their own lives and begin to embrace what can still be retrieved. Writing with both wit and compassion, Lively conjures up Edward and Helen’s dilemmas with uncommon sympathy, immersing the reader in their concerns through her careful orchestration of emotional details. “Passing On feels like real life drawn to scale, where private dreams dwarf the daily routine . . . The slow unfolding of secrets gives the book tension without melodrama.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Nothing Missing But the Samovar, and Other Stories

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Author :
Publisher : Heinemann Educational Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Nothing Missing But the Samovar, and Other Stories by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Nothing Missing But the Samovar, and Other Stories written by Penelope Lively and published by Heinemann Educational Books. This book was released on 1978 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Making It Up

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1440627223
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (46 download)

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Book Synopsis Making It Up by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Making It Up written by Penelope Lively and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-09-26 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Look out for Penelope Lively’s new book, The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories. Hailed by critics as a benchmark in a career full of award-winning achievements, Making It Up is Penelope Lively's answer to the oft-asked question, "How much of what you write comes from your own life?" What if Lively hadn't escaped from Egypt, her birthplace, at the outbreak of World War II? What would her life have been like if she'd married someone else? From a hillside in Italy to an archaeological dig, the author explores the stories that could have been hers, fashioning a sublime dance between reality and imagination that confirms her reputation as a singular talent.

The Lively Ghosts of Ireland

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Author :
Publisher : Crossroad Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 181 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Lively Ghosts of Ireland by : Hans Holzer

Download or read book The Lively Ghosts of Ireland written by Hans Holzer and published by Crossroad Press. This book was released on 2020-10-04 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle, a land of history and mystery, beauty and enchantment. But there's much more to this jewel of the North Atlantic than meets the eye. Hans Holzer is a renowned ghost hunter who has traveled the world trailing the elusive spirits of souls anxious to be sent beyond the Veil. Here he recounts his fascinating journey across this island in search of its soul...and its spirits. There is an 18th-century swordsman who defends the hidden treasure of Ballyheigue Castle, a proud house now gutted by fire; Princess Orloff, originally known as Angelica Parrott, who returned home to haunt a jealous sister; Lilith, a young inhabitant of eerie Skryne Castle, who was strangled with foxglove fronds in 1740; Mary Masters, a young girl who refuses to forget her horrible death and continues to haunt Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel; the ghost at Number 118 Summerhill, Dublin who sends workmen into a panic; and many more.

I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China

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Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231136943
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (311 download)

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Book Synopsis I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China by : Wen Zhu

Download or read book I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China written by Wen Zhu and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In five richly imaginative novellas and a short story, Zhu Wen depicts the violence, chaos, and dark comedy of China in the post-Mao era. A frank reflection of the seamier side of his nation's increasingly capitalist society, Zhu Wen's fiction offers an audaciously plainspoken account of the often hedonistic individualism that is feverishly taking root. Set against the mundane landscapes of contemporary China-a worn Yangtze River vessel, cheap diners, a failing factory, a for-profit hospital operating by dated socialist norms-Zhu Wen's stories zoom in on the often tragicomic minutiae of everyday life in this fast-changing country. With subjects ranging from provincial mafiosi to nightmarish families and oppressed factory workers, his claustrophobic narratives depict a spiritually bankrupt society, periodically rocked by spasms of uncontrolled violence. For example, I Love Dollars, a story about casual sex in a provincial city whose caustic portrayal of numb disillusionment and cynicism, caused an immediate sensation in the Chinese literary establishment when it was first published. The novella's loose, colloquial voice and sharp focus on the indignity and iniquity of a society trapped between communism and capitalism showcase Zhu Wen's exceptional ability to make literary sense of the bizarre, ideologically confused amalgam that is contemporary China. Julia Lovell's fluent translation deftly reproduces Zhu Wen's wry sense of humor and powerful command of detail and atmosphere. The first book-length publication of Zhu Wen's fiction in English, I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China offers readers access to a trailblazing author and marks a major contribution to Chinese literature in English.

Attrib. and Other Stories

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Author :
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0593312368
Total Pages : 107 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (933 download)

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Book Synopsis Attrib. and Other Stories by : Eley Williams

Download or read book Attrib. and Other Stories written by Eley Williams and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It's just the real inexplicable gorgeous brilliant thing this book. I love it in a way I usually reserve for people." --Max Porter A dazzling, prizewinning short story collection that showcases a bold new talent Eley Williams has been a literary sensation ever since this collection of experimental short fiction was published in the UK. Lauded as "elegant" (The Guardian) and "exhilarating" (Vanity Fair), Attrib. and Other Stories won the James Tait Black Prize, was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was named a best book of the year by The Guardian. Attrib. presents a cast of unforgettable characters standing at the precipice of emotional events (a disastrous breakup, a successful date, an unexpected arrival) and finding it fiendishly impossible to express themselves. With intimate, irreverent, and playful prose, Eley Williams rejoices in both the possibilities and limitations of language, as well as the very human need to be known and understood--despite our own best efforts. Original and inventive in the vein of Lydia Davis, Deborah Eisenberg, and Amy Hempel, these stories are "emotionally delicate and tenderly introspective" (New Statesman) and "an absolute must-read" (The London Magazine).

Metamorphosis

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Author :
Publisher : Fig Tree
ISBN 13 : 9780241514771
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (147 download)

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Book Synopsis Metamorphosis by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Metamorphosis written by Penelope Lively and published by Fig Tree. This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wry, compassionate, and glittering with wit, Penelope Lively's stories get beneath the everyday to the beating heart of human experience. In intimate stories of growing up and growing old, chance encounters and life-long relationships, Lively explores with keen insight the ways that individuals can become tangled in history, and small acts ripple through the generations. From new and never-before-published stories to forgotten treasures, Metamorphosis showcases the very best from a literary master.

Pack of Cards

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Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 0802197353
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (21 download)

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Book Synopsis Pack of Cards by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Pack of Cards written by Penelope Lively and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “abundantly rich collection” of short stories by the Man Booker Prize–winning author (The New York Times Book Review). In Pack of Cards, Penelope Lively shares moments in the everyday world that are not always open to observation, as she delves into the minutiae of her characters’ lives. Whether she writes about a widow on a visit to Russia, a small boy’s consignment to boarding school, or an agoraphobic housewife, Lively takes the reader behind a closed curtain, through the locked door, and into a world that seems at first mundane—then proves to be uniquely memorable. “Witty, profoundly civilized . . . This captivatingly intelligent collection confirms Lively’s place as one of Britain’s most imaginative and important contemporary writers.” —Library Journal

Growing Things and Other Stories

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Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062679147
Total Pages : 410 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (626 download)

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Book Synopsis Growing Things and Other Stories by : Paul Tremblay

Download or read book Growing Things and Other Stories written by Paul Tremblay and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the Bram Stoker Award "One of the best collections of the 21st century." — Stephen King A chilling collection of psychological suspense and literary horror from the multiple award-winning author of the national bestseller The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts. A masterful anthology featuring nineteen pieces of short fiction, Growing Things is an exciting glimpse into Paul Tremblay’s fantastically fertile imagination. In “The Teacher,” a Bram Stoker Award nominee for best short story, a student is forced to watch a disturbing video that will haunt and torment her and her classmates’ lives. Four men rob a pawn shop at gunpoint only to vanish, one-by-one, as they speed away from the crime scene in “The Getaway.” In “Swim Wants to Know If It’s as Bad as Swim Thinks,” a meth addict kidnaps her daughter from her estranged mother as their town is terrorized by a giant monster . . . or not. Joining these haunting works are stories linked to Tremblay’s previous novels. The tour de force metafictional novella “Notes from the Dog Walkers” deconstructs horror and publishing, possibly bringing in a character from A Head Full of Ghosts, all while serving as a prequel to Disappearance at Devil’s Rock. “The Thirteenth Temple” follows another character from A Head Full of Ghosts—Merry, who has published a tell-all memoir written years after the events of the novel. And the title story, “Growing Things,” a shivery tale loosely shared between the sisters in A Head Full of Ghosts, is told here in full. From global catastrophe to the demons inside our heads, Tremblay illuminates our primal fears and darkest dreams in startlingly original fiction that leaves us unmoored. As he lowers the sky and yanks the ground from beneath our feet, we are compelled to contemplate the darkness inside our own hearts and minds.

Life in the Garden

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 052555839X
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (255 download)

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Book Synopsis Life in the Garden by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Life in the Garden written by Penelope Lively and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Booker Prize winner and national bestselling author, reflections on gardening, art, literature, and life Penelope Lively takes up her key themes of time and memory, and her lifelong passions for art, literature, and gardening in this philosophical and poetic memoir. From the courtyards of her childhood home in Cairo to a family cottage in Somerset, to her own gardens in Oxford and London, Lively conducts an expert tour, taking us from Eden to Sissinghurst and into her own backyard, traversing the lives of writers like Virginia Woolf and Philip Larkin while imparting her own sly and spare wisdom. "Her body of work proves that certain themes never go out of fashion," writes the New York Times Book Review, as true of this beautiful volume as of the rest of the Lively canon. Now in her eighty-fourth year, Lively muses, "To garden is to elide past, present, and future; it is a defiance of time."

The Road to Lichfield

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Author :
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 0802197361
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (21 download)

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Book Synopsis The Road to Lichfield by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book The Road to Lichfield written by Penelope Lively and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Man Booker Prize–shortlisted first novel and a “searing study of the peculiar state of being in love” (The Sunday Telegraph). In The Road to Lichfield, Penelope Lively explores the nature of history and memory as it is embodied in the life of forty-year-old Anne Linton, who comes to her father’s aid when he is moved into a nursing home in a distant town. As she shares his last weeks, she unexpectedly learns that her father had a mistress. With this new knowledge, Linton must examine the realities of her own life—of her childhood, her marriage—and ask, what secrets has she also kept? Deeply felt and beautifully controlled, The Road to Lichfield is a subtle exploration of chance and consequence, of the intricate weave of generations across a past never fully known, and a future never fully anticipated. “Like all of Lively’s best novels, The Road to Lichfield contains beneath its modest veneer great depths of intelligence, perception and feeling.” —The Washington Post Book World

Ammonites and Leaping Fish

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 024196699X
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis Ammonites and Leaping Fish by : Penelope Lively

Download or read book Ammonites and Leaping Fish written by Penelope Lively and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir that addresses ageing, memory, time and a life in the 20th century, by one of our greatest writers, Penelope Lively. 'This is not quite a memoir. Rather, it is the view from old age. And a view of old age itself, this place at which we arrive with a certain surprise - ambushed, or so it can seem. One of the few advantages of age is that you can report on it with a certain authority; you are a native now, and know what goes on here.' In this charming but powerful memoir, Penelope Lively reports from beyond the horizon of old age. She describes what old age feels like for those who have arrived there and considers the implications of this new demographic. She looks at the context of a life and times, the history and archaeology that is actually being made as we live out our lives in real time, in her case World War II; post war penny-pinching Britain; the Suez crisis; the Cold War and up to the present day. She examines the tricks and truths of memory. She looks back over a lifetime of reading and writing. And finally she looks at her identifying cargo of possessions - two ammonites, a cat, a pair of American ducks and a leaping fish sherd, amongst others. This is an elegant, moving and deeply enjoyable memoir by one of our most loved writers.