A masterclass in fusing together biography
with an analysis of Donne’s poetry and the mores of the period. I am not so
good on poetry, but this completely won me over.
The writing is superb, the
character of John Donne is conveyed with the minimum of effort, and the
development and significance of the verse could not be bettered.
It is
comparatively short, but what is packed into these pages is nothing short of
astonishing – not least Katherine Rundell’s summing up of Donne’s marriage, considered one of the great love affairs to have been put into poetry.
**A Sunday Times top ten bestseller** **Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2023** **Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize for Non-Fiction 2023** **Shortlisted for the Slightly Foxed First Biography Prize 2023**
'Masterly.' Observer 'Wonderful, joyous.' Maggie O'Farrell 'Frankly brilliant.' Sunday Times 'Unmissable.' Simon Jenkins 'Every page sparkles.' Claire Tomalin 'A triumph.' Matt Haig 'Stylish, scholarly and gripping.' Rose Tremain
John Donne lived myriad lives. Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, Donne was incapable of being just one thing.
He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, an MP,…
I am late, late to Eva Ibbotson, who died in 2010, but when I discovered her this
year, I devoured the lot.
As a child, she fled the Nazis with her family from
Austria, came to England, and, later, wrote prizewinning books for children. Her
adult novels have recently been reissued, and, bitter-sweet but never
sentimental, Madensky Square is my favourite.
Set in 1911, it’s the story of what happens in the square
during the year and to Susanna Weber, a gifted dress designer. She is an observer,
a friend, wry and as sharp as one of her needles, and in love with a married army
officer. Above all, she is an independent woman (in an age which frowns on
female independence) and possesses great resilience.
It is all woven together
with the lightest of touches, a tough and acute capacity to observe, and deep
affection for the characters.
Madensky Square is Eva Ibbotson's magical novel set in that most poignant of all times and places - Vienna before the First World War.
Susanna's dress shop stands in the delightful Madensky Square and is the very hub and heart of life. Susanna sympathizes with her neighbours, watches over Signi, the wretched, orphaned child prodigy, and with her infallible eye for dress, turns an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.
Of all the colourful characters in Madensky Square, only her dear friend Alice has the slightest inkling that Susanna hides more than one secret. This hidden life, full of passion…
What a novel. From the simple premise of a woman pinching
her dead best friend’s manuscript and passing it off as her own is spun a
thought-provoking and fascinating story.
It asks questions: who is empowered to tell a story? Everyone?
Or only the people to whom it belongs? What is the publishing industry? Clever
professionals? Or those that are led only by social media?
The novel also
unpeels how complicated a lie can be, and it is compulsive, tense, and more than
a little satirical.
Did one mind what happens to June, who stole what became a
mega-selling manuscript? Not that much but it sure is gripping reading, watching
her navigating the bumpy waters on which she set sail.
The No. 1 Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller from literary sensation R.F. Kuang
*A Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick*
'Propulsive' SUNDAY TIMES
'Razor-sharp' TIME
'A wild ride' STYLIST
'Darkly comic' GQ
'A riot' PANDORA SYKES
'Hard to put down, harder to forget' STEPHEN KING
Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.
White lies When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.
Dark humour But as evidence threatens June's stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she…
Newly married Lottie Archer arrives in Rome to take up a job as an archivist. When she discovers a valuable fifteenth-century painting in the papers of Nina Lawrence who died prematurely, she is curious to discover what happened.
Nina seems to have led a rewarding and useful life, restoring Italian gardens to their full glory following the destruction of World War Two. So why did no one attend her funeral in 1978?
In exploring Nina's past, Lottie is drawn into a love story beset by the political turmoil of post-war Italy. And as she edges closer to understanding Nina, and the city draws her deeper into its life, she is brought up against a past which will come to shape her own future.
