The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud  (13)
£5.99
|
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (12)
£3.95
|
This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime, but millions of other items are. Join Amazon Prime today. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||||||||||
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
Review
Shena Mackay has a rare and beguiling gift with words. The contemporary world of her novel is a deceptively simple one but the story it gently unfolds lingers long in the memory, as does her cast of eclectic characters, cocooned in their strange retreat. In the shell of the Nautilus, a surreal maritime building once used as a refuge for a group of dynamic intellectuals and artists, a few inhabitants still cling on, obstinate in their refusal to abandon a place now ramshackle, a faint echo of its glorious past. Celeste and Francis are the original and now elderly occupants of the great space of the Nautilus, and their only companion is Gus Crabb, a younger bric-a-brac dealer whose combustible personal life has led him to seek temporary sanctuary here. But there is another person irresistibly drawn to this motley group and this is the pivotal character of the book, Rowena Snow, whose sense of inadequacy and lifelong isolation - reminiscent of Charlotte Bronte's heroine in Villette - has led her to a place that will prove crucial in her rehabilitation. Desperately searching for her lost family, she's trying to recapture the elusive sense of warmth and identity she recollects only from earliest childhood. Slowly, through immersing herself in the lives of her neighbours and gradually shedding her sense of permanent displacement, she discovers that true connection lies on her very doorstep and that a different type of family lies waiting for her in the unlikeliest of places. The way Mackay develops her story is masterly; she weaves a haunting tale from the simplest of threads with such consummate precision and empathy for those she portrays that one becomes truly immersed in the uplifting story of one woman's road to Damascus. (Kirkus UK)
Product Description
Celeste Zylberstein and Francis Campion are the two original inhabitants left at the Nautilus, an artistic community in the 1930s. Gus Crabb, a bric-a-brac dealer is the only other resident until Rowena Snow moves in seeking her own Utopia or the Heligoland of her childhood imagination.
See all Product Description
Shena Mackay has a rare and beguiling gift with words. The contemporary world of her novel is a deceptively simple one but the story it gently unfolds lingers long in the memory, as does her cast of eclectic characters, cocooned in their strange retreat. In the shell of the Nautilus, a surreal maritime building once used as a refuge for a group of dynamic intellectuals and artists, a few inhabitants still cling on, obstinate in their refusal to abandon a place now ramshackle, a faint echo of its glorious past. Celeste and Francis are the original and now elderly occupants of the great space of the Nautilus, and their only companion is Gus Crabb, a younger bric-a-brac dealer whose combustible personal life has led him to seek temporary sanctuary here. But there is another person irresistibly drawn to this motley group and this is the pivotal character of the book, Rowena Snow, whose sense of inadequacy and lifelong isolation - reminiscent of Charlotte Bronte's heroine in Villette - has led her to a place that will prove crucial in her rehabilitation. Desperately searching for her lost family, she's trying to recapture the elusive sense of warmth and identity she recollects only from earliest childhood. Slowly, through immersing herself in the lives of her neighbours and gradually shedding her sense of permanent displacement, she discovers that true connection lies on her very doorstep and that a different type of family lies waiting for her in the unlikeliest of places. The way Mackay develops her story is masterly; she weaves a haunting tale from the simplest of threads with such consummate precision and empathy for those she portrays that one becomes truly immersed in the uplifting story of one woman's road to Damascus. (Kirkus UK)
Product Description
Celeste Zylberstein and Francis Campion are the two original inhabitants left at the Nautilus, an artistic community in the 1930s. Gus Crabb, a bric-a-brac dealer is the only other resident until Rowena Snow moves in seeking her own Utopia or the Heligoland of her childhood imagination.
See all Product Description