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A Closed Eye by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction
'Without warning, it seemed, she had become a married woman.' Naive and undemanding, Harriet Lytton expects very little of life and that is what she recieves. Married to a respectable man old enough to be her father, Harriet's only taste of passion comes when she meets Jack Peckham, the unruly, attracti ...Show more
A Family Romance by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction
'Literature for me was a magnificent destiny for which I was not yet fully prepared.' Paul and Henrietta Manning and their solitary, academic daughter Jane have nothing in common with Dolly, widow of Henrietta's brother. Corseted and painted, Dolly is a frivolous, superficial woman, who has little time ...Show more
A Friend from England by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction | Series: Vintage Contemporaries Ser.
When Rachel becomes involved in the lives of the Livingstones it is with an acute appreciation of their home - beautifully furnished and richly decorated. They have won an undisclosed amount of money on the football pools. But rather than enjoy their new-found wealth, seem sadly resigned to it. They do, ...Show more
A Private View by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction
'Seated at a cafe table, in the syrupy warmth of out-of-season Nice, he reviewed his life and found it to be alarmingly empty.' George Bland had planned to spend his retirement in leisurely travel and modest entertainment with his friend Putnam. When Putnam dies George is left attempting to impose some ...Show more
A Start in Life by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction
"Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.' Ruth Weiss, an academic, is beautiful, intelligent and lonely. Studying the heroines of Balzac in order to discover where her own childhood and adult life has gone awry, she seeks not salvation but enlightenment. Yet in revisiting h ...Show more
A Start in Life by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction | Series: Penguin Essentials Ser.
'Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.' Ruth Weiss, an academic, is beautiful, intelligent and lonely. Studying the heroines of Balzac in order to discover where her own childhood and adult life has gone awry, she seeks not salvation but enlightenment. Yet in revisiting ...Show more
Altered States by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction
'I was foolish enough to think that I was strong enough, and cheerful enough by nature, to avoid unhappiness. I was not yet old enough to see that I was in error.' Alan Sherwood is a cautious, solitary London solicitor who finds himself obsessed by his glamorous cousin Sarah. But Sarah is self-seeking ...Show more
Bay of Angels by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction
"'It was at Millie's party, on that Friday evening, that she met her second husband, my stepfather-to-be, and thus changed both our lives . . .' ZoU is delighted when her widowed mother marries Simon, a generous older man who owns a villa in Nice. However, the long enchanted visits to France she enjoys ...Show more
Brief Lives by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction
'I never liked her, nor did she like me; strange, then, how we managed to keep up a sort of friendship for so long.' Fay Langdon has relinquished her singing career to marry Owen, a highly successful solicitor. At one of their dinner parties Fay meets the glamorous, self-obsessed Julia and is destined t ...Show more
Falling Slowly by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction
Beatrice and Miriam are sisters, sharing little except an unhappy childhood. Beatrice is a pianist, a romantic, while Miriam is disillusioned after a failed marriage. While they have a home and a few acquaintances in common, neither confides to the other what is in their hearts.
Falling Slowly by Anita Brookner
Category: Fiction
"Sisters Beatrice and Miriam have each other, but they were never close. Beatrice is a pianist, a romantic, while Miriam is disillusioned after a failed marriage. Living together yet failing to confide in one another, each is haunted by the mistakes they have made and the opportunities squandered. Both ...Show more