Ghosts By Daylight
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Review
'Janine di Giovanni writes with unblinking courage about war, death, marriage, motherhood, loss, love, redemption, fear -- indeed, about all the world's most pressing risks and dangers. She has seen far more of life than the rest of us, so she knows more than we do --and yet she lays down her memoir with touching and deeply honest humility. Her writing here (as ever in her remarkable career) is a great and important achievement' --Elizabeth Gilbert, author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE
'Janine di Giovanni writes with unblinking courage about war, death, marriage, motherhood, loss, love, redemption, fear - indeed, about all the world's most pressing risks and dangers ... Her writing here (as ever in her remarkable career) is a great and important achievement' ----Elizabeth Gilbert
'Gripping and brilliantly done' ----The Times
`A vivid, heartfelt book that shows the extremes of life lived to the full' ----Tatler
`Unashamedly romantic, and combining quiet reflection with pacy narrative, di Giovanni looks at love with the same clear eye she brings to war' ----Economist
'Janine di Giovanni writes with unblinking courage about war, death, marriage, motherhood, loss, love, redemption, fear - indeed, about all the world's most pressing risks and dangers ... Her writing here (as ever in her remarkable career) is a great and important achievement' ----Elizabeth Gilbert
'Gripping and brilliantly done' ----The Times
`A vivid, heartfelt book that shows the extremes of life lived to the full' ----Tatler
`Unashamedly romantic, and combining quiet reflection with pacy narrative, di Giovanni looks at love with the same clear eye she brings to war' ----Economist
Product Description
Janine and Bruno first fell in love as young reporters in the besieged city of Sarajevo. Years later - after endless phone calls, much of what the French call malentendu, secret trysts in foreign cities, numerous break-ups, three miscarriages, countless stories of rebel armies and a dozen wars that had passed between them - they arrive in Paris one rainy January to begin a new life together. The remnants of their separate lives, now left behind, are tentatively unpacked into their shared apartment on the Right Bank: Bruno's heavy blanket from Ethiopia, a set of long feathered arrows from Brazil, an ash tray stolen from a hotel in Algeria, and Janine's flak-jacket and canvas boots, still full of sand from the Western Desert in Iraq. But having met in another lifetime - in another world - ordinary, civilian life doesn't come easily. War has become part of them: it had brought them together, and, though both are damaged by it, neither can quite leave it behind. And the difficult journey that follows, through their mix of joy and terror at becoming parents, Bruno's battle with post-traumatic stress and addiction, and Janine's determination to make France her home, leads to an understanding of the truth that people who deeply love each other cannot always live together. A searing, profoundly moving love letter, beautifully written, Ghosts by Daylight is a powerfully raw portrait of marriage and motherhood in the aftermath of war.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As someone who suffered from trauma, I was deeply moved by Janine's book. Although she writes about her life, I felt as though she wrote about mine. Janine's book gave me new insights, led me to new questions and offered new answers. It touched me in ways I never expected. I read the book in one night, amidst tears and laughter. Ghosts by Daylight filled me with hope and courage.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A moving account of writer Janine di Giovanni's life as she settles down in Paris. Nothing is easy as her life changes from being a war correspondent to a mother. She writes very honestly about her marriage breakdown - what started with strong and passionate love in war zones becomes impossible to sustain in safe Paris.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Ghosts by Daylight is less a book about war than author Janine Di Giovanni's struggles to adapt to life without the frontline. It is not always an easy read and the author can come across as being just as self-centred and tiresome as she does brilliant and courageous. The book seemingly mirror her flaws and unless one sees it - and in effect her life - in its totality, parts of it can seem overblown. In particular the way in which she writes about motherhood would seem at times suggest that she is the only woman in the world to experience the confusion of emotions that come with rearing children. Indeed I found some of these passages irritating and lacking self-awareness. But then few mothers have spent their lives travelling from the frontline of one humanitarian crisis to another, so who am I to possibly judge?
The most powerful passages deal with life on the frontline, notably in the book's closing pages when she returns to Sarajevo. These sections are too scarce and there is a sense that we are only getting the briefest of glimpses of the horrors she has seen and experienced. And yet we are often left with the sense that motherhood and marriage have been more difficult for her to deal with than mayhem and carnage in warzones.
This is a complex, slightly flawed book but one which probably reflects the life and personality of its author. Certainly it is worth perservering with.
The most powerful passages deal with life on the frontline, notably in the book's closing pages when she returns to Sarajevo. These sections are too scarce and there is a sense that we are only getting the briefest of glimpses of the horrors she has seen and experienced. And yet we are often left with the sense that motherhood and marriage have been more difficult for her to deal with than mayhem and carnage in warzones.
This is a complex, slightly flawed book but one which probably reflects the life and personality of its author. Certainly it is worth perservering with.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Disappointing
This book is a scattered-brained mess of a memoir. It talks about the author's experiences of war, and her subsequent life as a housewife/mother in seemingly random flashbacks, in... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Zeynep CB
Love and War
As an admirer of Janine di Giovanni's writing in Marie Claire and other magazines/newspapers, I expected this book to be good, and it is. Read more
Published 1 month ago by DianaGreece
Better on war than love...
Well, just finished this vaguely autobiographical novel, and on the whole I enjoyed the read. The story describes the life and travails of a war correspondent, traumatised from... Read more
Published 1 month ago by ijhodgson
Confusing and poorly edited
This book is NOT, in my opinion, 'beautifully written' as so many other reviewers would have one believe. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Tracie
Beautiful and Powerful
This is not a book solely about war and it is not a book solely about Di Giovanni's life as a war corespondent. It is a book about life and the struggles that make life what it is. Read more
Published 6 months ago by drlauraciel
A moving story
Through a loosely told chronology, the story flits between present realities and past memories. Both are littered with the horror of war; the civil kind. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Ian Hunter
ghosts bu daylight By Janine di Giovanni
An evocative and sensual story of love and war. Janine di Giovanni's book is intimate, touching and very romantic. Beautifully written and a pleasure to read from cover to cover.
Published 8 months ago by diana de Gunzburg
ghosts by daylight
An incredible book . The story is very touching my wife and myself loved it . Please read it . You won't be disappointed .
Published 9 months ago by Michel J. Lamirand
A must read.
A fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the toll war reporting takes on the inner lives of those who venture out to shine light in dark places. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Cate Kermorgant
superb.....
I absolutly loved this book. It made me cry, laugh and be nostalgic. I love a good, true and honest story. And this is it.
Published 9 months ago by samanth
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