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The Coward’s Tale
 
 

The Coward’s Tale [Kindle Edition]

Vanessa Gebbie
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

Digital List Price: £6.86 What's this?
Print List Price: £7.99
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Product Description

Review

'My novel of the year ... an extraordinarily lyrical, moving, funny evocation of a Welsh mining town ... A terrific achievement' ----A.N. Wilson, Financial Times Book of the Year

'Spellbinding' ----Guardian

'Gebbie's prose has something of the musical rhythm and cadence of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood ... a hypnotic debut' ----Independent

'A striking first novel, poetic in style and funny ... reminiscent of Dylan Thomas at his best' ----Guardian, Readers' Books of the Year

`Tender and gripping - a brilliantly written epic' ----Maggie Gee

`Compulsively readable. She writes with such warmth and kindness and her poetic writing is meticulous in its apt and close observation' ----Mari Strachan, author of The Earth Hums in B Flat

Review

My novel of the year ... an extraordinarily lyrical, moving, funny evocation of a Welsh mining town ... A terrific achievement -- A.N. Wilson Financial Times Book of the Year Spellbinding Guardian Gebbie's prose has something of the musical rhythm and cadence of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood ... a hypnotic debut Independent A striking first novel, poetic in style and funny ... reminiscent of Dylan Thomas at his best -- Readers' Books Of The Year Guardian 'Tender and gripping - a brilliantly written epic' Maggie Gee 'Compulsively readable. She writes with such warmth and kindness and her poetic writing is meticulous in its apt and close observation' Mari Strachan, author of The Earth Hums in B Flat

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 1456 KB
  • Print Length: 385 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1408821567
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (7 Nov 2011)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B005T1YBXC
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #25,766 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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More About the Author

Vanessa Gebbie
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Customer Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The writing style does take a page or two to get used to, but once you do, you're off and running. The Welsh village comes to life as Vanessa draws out the tales of the characters you'll come to know and love. It's an interesting, endearing and cleverly woven fable, with realistic, exquisite detail. The darkness from her short story collections is not as much evident in this, her first novel. I'm looking forward to the sequel!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I have really enjoyed this book, with its cleverly interwoven stories of the people of a small Welsh town. The sense of community and the way lives intersect through events was very strong, and I really liked the eccentricities of the characters. The writing is very good so it draws you into believing the quirks and it has been a pleasure visualising people like the baker who throws his bad bread into the river, the woodwork teacher making feathers and the groups of cinemagoers who repeatedly fall under the storytelling spell of the beggar Ianto Jenkins, and never make it to the films.

In the unusual tales of a community it reminded me of Louis de Berniere's early books, but with more of a bittersweet tone and quieter characters, carrying the inheritance of a tragedy in the town with them.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Enthralling 20 Nov 2011
Format:Hardcover
I read the last few chapters of The Cowards Tale in bed this morning with the conflicting emotions I always get when coming to the end of a book I have come to love - joy at the unfolding and elegant culmination of the story journey I've been on, and sadness that there are no more pages left to turn.

Huge congrats Vanessa for a beautiful lyrical tale. The gentle yet powerful narrative pulled me in before I knew it and having spent much of the past year going back to my original home in South Wales and regularly driving up the Rhondda, through Merthyr and over Dowlais Top to Blaina, the sense of place, voice and idiom were joyously & poignantly accurate.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Beautifully Written
This novel is so poetic, original, melancholy and humorous. It was like walking through a different, yet very real, world, and getting to know those who inhabit it in a very deep... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Sophie Playle
A magical book of insight, whimsy, humour, heartbreak and healing
`My name is Ianto Jenkins. I am a coward'
So starts The Coward's Tale by Vanessa Gebbie, a book so magical and lyrical that even three weeks after finishing it, I ache to go... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Nettie Thomson
A Wonderful Web of Narrative
Having previously read, and loved, Vanessa Gebbie's short- and flash-fictions in Words from a Glass Bubble and Storm Warning, I was interested to see how she would turn her hand to... Read more
Published 2 months ago by C. A. Kerr
"Just because the clouds are over the Beacons, does not mean that the...
Set in the mining country of southern Wales, Vanessa Gebbie's incandescent new novel captures the cadences and speech patterns that lovers of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood have... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mary Whipple
A string of fresh, Welsh pearls
This is a delightful string of vignettes about the characters living in a small Welsh community and their interactions. Rather in the same vein as 'Under Milkwood'. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Judi Moore
The Coward's Tale
A haunting book. The imagery in unrolling the history of the characters devolving from the Kindly Light disaster was masterly - giving understanding to Ianto Jenkins' belief that... Read more
Published 3 months ago by mavis
Perfect
I think this has to be one of the most complete books I have ever read.

The language is so exquisite, the characters so rich and the descriptions so painfully beautiful,... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Joanna Cannon
Mesmerising and profound.
What a fabulous book this is! There is such breadth in its telling narrative and an evident love of language - a true gift in this writer's hands - that heightens the tenderness... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Bluefish
Mesmerising
What a beautiful book. It is only the second week of January, but I can't believe I'll read a better novel this year. The prose is rich and poetic, the dialogue is just wonderful. Read more
Published 4 months ago by J. Wilson
Original and wonderful!
Individual life stories weave round each other like the streams and the wind weave round the Welsh village, home to the Kindly Light mine, whose tragedy has left its stamp on every... Read more
Published 5 months ago by sibyl
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