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Rare personal reflections from “one of our most talented writers” ( The New York Times Book Review ) Look out for Penelope Lively’s new book, The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories. Memory and history have been Penelope Lively’s terrain in fiction throughout a career that has spanned five decades. In this “funny, smart, and poignant” ( Los Angeles Times ) memoir, she offers a glimpse into her influences and formative years, as well as a view of what life looks like from the vantage point of eighty years. Lively traces the arc of her own life, from early childhood in Cairo to boarding school in England to the sweeping social changes of Britain’s twentieth century. She reflects on her early love of archaeology, and on the fragments of the ancients that have accompanied her journey. She also takes an intimate look back at a life devoted to books and writes insightfully about aging.
About the author
PENELOPE LIVELY is an award-winning novelist and author of children’s literature. She received the Man Booker Prize for her novel Moon Tiger and wide acclaim for The Photograph, Family Album, and How It All Began. She lives in London.
Summary
"Sharp, unsentimental and ruefully funny. A fascinating portrait not only of Lively but of the times through which she has lived" -- Daily Telegraph (London)
Rare personal reflections from “one of our most talented writers” (The New York Times Book Review), Booker Prize winner Penelope Lively
At age eighty, Penelope Lively wrote this powerful and compelling 'view from old age', reporting back on what she found. There are meditations on what it is like to be old as well as on how memory shapes us. There are intriguing examinations of the key personal as well as historical moments she has lived through and her thoughts on her own bookishness - both as reader and writer. Lastly, she turns to six treasured possessions to speak eloquently about who she is and where she's been - fragments of memories from a life well lived.
