The definitive selection of short stories from one of our greatest living writers, curated by Penelope Lively herself br>br>Wry, compassionate and glittering with wit, Penelope Lively''s stories get beneath the everyday to the beating heart of human experience. br>br>In intimate tales of growing up and growing old, chance encounters and life-long relationships, Lively explores with keen insight the ways that individuals can become tangled in history, and small acts ripple through the generations. br>br>From new and never-before-published stories to forgotten treasures, Metamorphosis showcases the very best from a literary master. br>br>''Lively has the gift, rare and wonderful, of being able to peel back the layers one by one and set them before us, translucent and gleaming'' Sunday Telegraph br>br>''A sublime storyteller . . . she has us riveted with curiosity as to what will happen next, yet also keeps us consistently aware of the nature of the illusion'' Guardian br>br>''You are in the hands of a master'' Daily Mail>
Il se passe des choses étranges dans la maison des Harrison : courants d'air inexplicables, portes qui claquent et messages qui apparaissent mystérieusement. Les soupçons se portent sur James, le farceur de la famille. Très vite, celui-ci se rend à l'évidence : il s'agit d'un fantôme qui a décidé de lui empoisonner la vie ! Jusqu'où ira ce dernier pour chasser les intrus qui ont emménagé dans sa maison ? Quand un fantôme très en colère rencontre un garçon d'aujourd'hui, cela fait des étincelles et une histoire pleine d'humour... qui fait froid dans le dos.
Une autre existence... Et si... Et si ce jour-là vous vous étiez trompé de train. Et si vous n'aviez pas rencontré la personne qui allait changer votre vie. Et si vous aviez choisi une autre profession... C'est avec des "si" que, de façon très originale, Penelope Lively réinvente sa vie, à partir de huit épisodes parfaitement réels, mais qui auraient pu se dérouler tout à fait autrement. Et si, à dix-huit ans, après une joyeuse soirée entre étudiants, elle s'était retrouvée enceinte et rejetée par sa famille. Et si celui qui allait devenir son mari n'avait pas été exempté à la dernière minute de partir faire la guerre en Corée. Au jeu des "si", nous pouvons tous jouer et l'exercice est fascinant; nous inventer d'autres chemins, d'autres rêves, d'autres perspectives; nous créer des vies multiples...
Winner of the Booker Prize, Penelope Lively''s Moon Tiger is the tale of a historian confronting her own, personal history, unearthing the passions and pains that have defined her life. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Anthony Thwaite.br>br>Claudia Hampton, a beautiful, famous writer, lies dying in hospital. But, as the nurses tend to her with quiet condescension, she is plotting her greatest work: ''a history of the world ... and in the process, my own''. Gradually she re-creates the rich mosaic of her life and times, conjuring up those she has known. There is Gordon, her adored brother; Jasper, the charming, untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool, conventional daughter; and Tom, her one great love, both found and lost in wartime Egypt. Penelope Lively''s Booker Prize-winning novel weaves an exquisite mesh of memories, flashbacks and shifting voices, in a haunting story of loss and desire.br>br>Penelope Lively (b. 1933) was born in Cairo. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her novels include Passing On, City of the Mind, Cleopatra''s Sister and Heat Wave, and many are published by Penguin.br>br>If you enjoyed Moon Tiger, you might like L.P. Hartley''s The Go-Between, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.br>br>''It''s a fine, intelligent piece of work, the kind that Leaves its traces in the air long after you''ve put it away''br>Anne Tylerbr>br>''Funny, thoughtful ... a perfect example of the Lively art'' br>Mark Lawson, Independent>
The Road to Lichfield is the Booker Prize shortlisted first novel by Penelope Lively, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time on the 40th anniversary of its publication. Ann Linton leaves her family in Berkshire and sets up camp in her father's house when he is taken into a nursing home in distant Lichfield. As she shares his last weeks she meets David Fielding, and the love they share brings her feelings into sharp focus. Deeply felt, beautifully controlled, The Road to Lichfield is a subtle exploration of memory and identity, of chance and consequence, of the intricate weave of generations across a past never fully known, and a future never fully anticipated. 'A searing study of the peculiar state of being in love . . . there are few contemporary novelists to match her on this subject' Sunday Telegraph
Biographical notePenelope Lively is a prolific, popular and critically acclaimed author of fiction for both children and adults. She has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize, winning once for Moon Tiger in 1987. Main descriptionPublished in Penguin Modern Classics, Penelope Lively's Heat Wave is a moving portrayal of a fragile family damaged and defined by adultery, and the lengths to which a mother will go to protect the ones she loves. Pauline is spending the summer at World's End, a cottage somewhere in the middle of England. This year the adjoining cottage is occupied by her daughter Teresa and baby grandson Luke; and, of course, Maurice, the man Teresa married. As the hot months unfold, Maurice grows ever more involved in the book he is writing - and with his female copy editor - and Pauline can only watch in dismay and anger as her daughter repeats her own mistakes in love. The heat and tension will lead to a violent, startling climax. Penelope Lively (b. 1933) was born in Cairo. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her novels include Passing On, City of the Mind, Cleopatra's Sister and Heat Wave, and many are published by Penguin. If you enjoyed Heat Wave, you might like Lively's Moon Tiger, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Extraordinarily good, intelligent and perceptive ... very moving' Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black '[Heat Wave is] short, but the emotions are so intense and the writing so good that it punches well above its weight'Independent
" Chacun garda les yeux fixés sur la porte.
Un homme fit alors son apparition, un civil vêtu d'un costume gris immaculé avec une chemise blanche. Les passagers du vol CAP 500, sales, échevelés, les yeux rougis par l'épuisement, rivèrent sur lui leurs regards pleins de morosité. " Mesdames et Messieurs, bonsoir. J'ai reçu du gouvernement de la Calimbie la mission de vous souhaiter la bienvenue. Nous nous trouvons malheureusement dans la nécessité de différer encore quelque peu votre départ en raison des troubles qui persistent dan notre pays .
" La vérité, c'est que les infortunés passagers du vol qui se rendaient à Nairobi sont retenus en otages en Calimbie, où un incident technique a contraint leur appareil à se poser.
Que va-t-il se passer pendant ces longues journées d'attente, d'incertitude et d'angoisse ? L'étrange histoire de la Calimbie, pays d'Afrique où aurait régné autrefois la soeur de Cléopâtre, et le passé encore plus bizarre du dictateur qui la gouverne auront-ils une influence sur le cours des évènements ?.
Searching through a little-used cupboard at home, Glyn Peters chances upon a photograph he has never seen before. It shows his wife holding hands with another man. As Glyn begins to search for answers, he, and those around him, find the certainties of the past and present slip away.
Penelope Lively has always been a keen gardener. This book is partly a memoir of her own life in gardens: the large garden at home in Cairo where she spent most of her childhood, her grandmother's garden in a sloping Somerset field, then two successive Oxfordshire gardens of her own, and the smaller urban garden in the north London home she lives in today.
It is also a wise, engaging and far-ranging exploration of gardens in literature, from Paradise Lost to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and of writers and their gardens, from Virginia Woolf to Philip Larkin.
A respected literary biographer, Mark is working on the life of Gilbert Strong - a writer about whom he thinks he knows everything. Happily married, and apparently dedicated to a life of letters, he nevertheless falls in love with Strong's granddaughter Carrie, a vague and unsophisticated young woman more interested in bedding plants than books or passion. As Mark's obsessions develop over a hot, complicated summer, he begins to understand that nothing is ever what it seems; not Gilbert Strong, and certainly not himself.
According to Mark is a witty and moving look at love, literature and the dangers of middle-aged folly.
When . . . Charlotte is mugged and breaks her hip, her daughter Rose cannot accompany her employer Lord Peters to Manchester, which means his niece Marion has to go instead, which means she sends a text to her lover which is intercepted by his wife, which is . . . just the beginning in the ensuing chain of life-altering events. In this engaging, utterly absorbing and brilliantly told novel, Penelope Lively shows us how one random event can cause marriages to fracture and heal themselves, opportunities to appear and disappear, lovers who might never have met to find each other and entire lives to become irrevocably changed. Funny, humane, touching, sly and sympathetic, HOW IT ALL BEGAN is a brilliant sleight of hand from an author at the top of her game.
Allersmead is a big shabby Victorian suburban house. The perfect place to grow up for elegant Sandra, difficult Gina, destructive Paul, considerate Katie, clever Roger and flighty Clare.
But was it?
As adults, the children return to Allersmead one by one. To their home-making mother and aloof writer father, and a house that for years has played silent witness to a family's secrets. And one devastating secret of which no one speaks . . .
In 1935, privileged misfit Lorna falls for a penniless and bohemian artist, Matt. She moves to a rustic cottage in Somerset. A baby, Molly, is born, but the coming war takes Matt - and Lorna's dreams - away. Lorna's decisions and their unforeseeable consequences come to shape the lives of her daughter, Molly, and her granddaughter, Ruth.
Helen et Edward, la cinquantaine passée, sont à la fois désemparés et secrètement soulagés après la mort de leur mère, la tyrannique Dorothy. Ils vont se hâter de tenter quelques maladroites incursions vers la «vraie vie», c'est-à-dire l'amour, bien sûr, qui leur a toujours échappé. Mais désarmants, fragiles, ne vont-ils pas se briser contre un monde qu'ils ne connaissent pas ?
Matthew Halland, jeune architecte londonien, travaille à la rénovation du quartier des docks. En même temps que des maisons, c'est sa vie qu'il doit reconstruire après un mariage raté... Mais voici qu'autour de lui s'anime une grande ronde de personnages qui ont vécu à Londres, eux aussi, mais à d'autres époques et qui se rejoignent au-delà du temps...
