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Bookmarks has not yet published a review of this book. We may do so in the future; in the meantime, please see the other review sources to the right and browse the information from Amazon.com below.
Bookmarks has not yet published a review of this book. We may do so in the future; in the meantime, please see the other review sources to the right and browse the information from Amazon.com below.
Bookmarks has not yet published a review of this book. We may do so in the future; in the meantime, please see the other review sources to the right and browse the information from Amazon.com below.
Bookmarks has not yet published a review of this book. We may do so in the future; in the meantime, please see the other review sources to the right and browse the information from Amazon.com below.
Bookmarks has not yet published a review of this book. We may do so in the future; in the meantime, please see the other review sources to the right and browse the information from Amazon.com below.
Scribner
416 pages
Amazon.com Review
<b>Amazon Best of the Month, September 2009:</b> Following her breakout bestseller, <i>The Time Traveler's Wife</i>, Audrey Niffenegger returns with <i>Her Fearful Symmetry</i>, a haunting tale about the complications of love, identity, and sibling rivalry. The novel opens with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who bequeaths her London flat and its contents to the twin daughters of her estranged twin sister back in Chicago. These 20-year-old dilettantes, Julie and Valentina, move to London, eager to try on a new experience like one of their obsessively matched outfits. Historic Highgate Cemetery, which borders Elspeth's home, serves as an inspired setting as the twins become entwined in the lives of their neighbors: Elspeth's former lover, Robert; Martin, an agoraphobic crossword-puzzle creator; and the ethereal Elspeth herself, struggling to adjust to the afterlife. Niffenegger brings these quirky, troubled characters to marvelous life, but readers may need their own supernatural suspension of disbelief as the story winds to its twisty conclusion. <i>--Brad Thomas Parsons</i>
Scribner
416 pages
Product Description
<b>Six years after the phenomenal success of <i>The Time Traveler's Wife</i>, Audrey Niffenegger has returned with a spectacularly compelling and haunting second novel set in and around Highgate Cemetery in London.</b><p> When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leaves her London apartment to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina. These two American girls never met their English aunt, only knew that their mother, too, was a twin, and Elspeth her sister. Julia and Valentina are semi-normal American teenagers--with seemingly little interest in college, finding jobs, or anything outside their cozy home in the suburbs of Chicago, and with an abnormally intense attachment to one another.<p> The girls move to Elspeth's flat, which borders Highgate Cemetery in London. They come to know the building's other residents. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword puzzle setter suffering from crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Marjike, Martin's devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt's neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including--perhaps--their aunt, who can't seem to leave her old apartment and life behind.<p> Niffenegger weaves a captivating story in <i>Her Fearful Symmetry</i> about love and identity, about secrets and sisterhood, and about the tenacity of life--even after death.
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Viking Adult
256 pages
Product Description
<B>From a rising British novelist, an artful meditation on love and life in contemporary London</B><BR><BR>When David Pinner introduces his former teacher, the American artist Ruth Marks, to his friend and flatmate James Glover, he unwittingly sets in place a love triangle loaded with tension, guilt, and heartbreak. As David plays reluctant witness (and more) to James and Ruth's escalating love affair, he must come to terms with his own blighted emotional life. Set in the London art scene awash with new money and intellectual pretension, in the sleek galleries and posh restaurants of a Britannia resurgent with cultural and economic power, Nick Laird's insightful and drolly satirical novel vividly portrays three people whose world gradually fractures along the ineluctable fault lines of desire, truth, deceit, and jealousy. With wit, compassion, and acuity, Laird explores the very nature of contemporary romance-"The Death of Love in Modern Culture," as David puts it in one of his dyspeptic blog posts-among damaged souls whose hearts and heads never quite line up long enough for them to achieve true happiness.
The Story: In Victorian Europe, the convergence of modern finance, industry, and politics changed the world forever. Through three interlocking stories, Stone’s Fall explores this transformation. In London in 1909, John Stone (Lord Ravenscliff), a powerful financier and arms manufacturer, falls to his death—perhaps murdered.
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Knopf
688 pages
Product Description
<b>Shortlisted</b><br><br><br><br><b> for the Man Booker Prize<br></b><br><br>A spellbinding novel, at once sweeping and intimate, from the Booker Prize–winning author of <i>Possession, </i>that spans the Victorian era through the World War I years, and centers around a famous children’s book author and the passions, betrayals, and secrets that tear apart the people she loves.<br><br>When Olive Wellwood’s oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of the new Victoria and Albert Museum—a talented working-class boy who could be a character out of one of Olive’s magical tales—she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends.<br><br>But the joyful bacchanals Olive hosts at her rambling country house—and the separate, private books she writes for each of her seven children—conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. As these lives—of adults and children alike—unfold, lies are revealed, hearts are broken, and the damaging truth about the Wellwoods slowly emerges. But their personal struggles, their hidden desires, will soon be eclipsed by far greater forces, as the tides turn across Europe and a golden era comes to an end.<br><br>Taking us from the cliff-lined shores of England to Paris, Munich, and the trenches of the Somme, <i>The Children’s Book </i>is a deeply affecting story of a singular family, played out against the great, rippling tides of the day. It is a masterly literary achievement by one of our most essential writers.
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Random House
256 pages
Product Description
Literary master Anita Brookner’s elegant style is manifest on every page of her brilliant new novel. Beautifully crafted and emotionally evocative, Strangers portrays the magic and depth of real life, telling the rich story of an ordinary man whose unexpected longings, doubts, and fears are universal.<br><br>Paul Sturgis is resigned to his bachelorhood and the quietude of his London flat. He occasionally pays obliging visits to his nearest living relative, Helena, his cousin’s widow and a doyenne of decorum who, like Paul, bears a tacit loneliness.<br>To avoid the impolite complications of turning down Helena’s Christmas invitation, Paul sets off for a holiday in Venice, where he meets Mrs. Vicky Gardner. Younger than Paul by several decades, the intriguing and lovely woman is in the midst of a divorce and at a crossroads in her life. Upon his return to England, a former girlfriend, Sarah, reenters Paul’s life. These two women reroute Paul’s introspections and spark a transformation within him.<br><br>Paul’s steady and preferred isolation now conflicts with the stark realization of his aloneness and his need for companionship in even the smallest degree. This awareness brings with it a torrent of feelings–reassessing his Venetian journey, desiring change, and fearing death. Ultimately, his discoveries about himself will lead Paul to make a shocking decision about his life.
