
The Children's Book (Paperback)
A. S. Byatt (author)Published: 07/01/2010
Famous author Olive Wellwood writes a special private book, bound in different colours, for each of her children. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends, the son and daughter of a curator at the new Victoria and Albert Museum, are already inscribed with mystery. Each family carries its own secrets.
They grow up in the golden summers of Edwardian times, but as the sons rebel against their parents and the girls dream of independent futures, they are unaware that in the darkness ahead they will be betrayed unintentionally by the adults who love them. This is the children's book.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9780099535454
Number of pages: 624
Weight: 450 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 32 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
Superlatively displays both enormous reach and tremendous grip...sizzling with ideas and alive with imaginative energy, too...this is the most stirring novel AS Byatt has written since Possession * Sunday Times *
It's success is as a novel of ideas, forcefully and often memorably expressed, while the story follows darkening fortunes into a chastened postwar world -- Helen Dunmore * The Times *
Compelling...strenuously inclusive and also tremendously enriching - an intricate tale, energetically fashioned from sturdy strands of material, by "a spinning fairy in the attic", an indefatigable storyteller * Irish Times *
Astonishing power and resonance -- Jane Shilling * Sunday Telegraph *
More than a novel, this is a historical primer, discursive, shimmering with colour and texture, containing stories within stories and giving walk-on parts to luminaries of the age... For fans of Byatt this is better than Possession. A truly great novel * Daily Express *
Light and lustrous, commanding and transporting, The Children's Book is superb * Daily Mail *
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“Complex and Wonderful”
This is a story of a group of three linked families and others who join their lives. It covers a long period and it takes a while to get the characters clear in your head but once you have it has a vibrancy that is... More
“Interesting!”
I really liked this but I normaly take 2 hours to read any book and it took me a week, mainly I think because it gives you lots to think about and is quite compicated to keep up with!
“Superior Family Saga”
A bit of a rambling saga of three inter-related families set in the late Victorian & then Edwardian eras, ending with WW1. Also it is a good social insight covering the Fabians, Women's movements & class... More
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