Penelope Lively

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.

Moon Tiger

The elderly Claudia Hampton, a best-selling author of popular history, lies alone in a London hospital bed. Memories of her life still glow in her fading consciousness, but she imagines writing a history of the world. Instead, Moon Tiger is her own history, the life of a strong, independent woman, with its often contentious relations with family and friends. At its center — forever frozen in time, the still point of her turning world — is the cruelly truncated affair with Tom, a British tank commander whom Claudia knew as a reporter in Egypt during World War II.

Eugenia Andino

This book was recommended to me because I reminded several friends of one of the characters, and of course that made me curious. I bought it and it's been languishing on a shelf for too many years. It's next on my list. 

*****************

This has been a complete disappointment, mostly because the pace is too slow and the characters, language and events are not engaging enough to compensate for that. A shame.

Mat Connor

Sadie Kimbrough

Pierke Bosschieter

Juliana

Angie Lee

Cristina P Miclea 

Irene Alegre

Lydia Rose

Amanda S

Penelope Lively's Booker Prize winning classic, Moon Tiger is a haunting story of loss and desire, published here as a Penguin Essential for the first time. Claudia Hampton - beautiful, famous, independent, dying. But she remains defiant to the last, telling her nurses that she will write a 'history of the world . . . and in the process, my own'. And it is her story from a childhood just after the First World War through the Second and beyond. But Claudia's life is entwined with others and she must allow those who knew her, loved her, the chance to speak, to put across their point of view. There is Gordon, brother and adversary; Jasper, her untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool conventional daughter; and then there is Tom, her one great love, found and lost in wartime Egypt. 'Leaves its traces in the air long after you've put it away' Anne Tyler 'A complex tapestry of great subtlety. Lively writes so well, savouring the words as she goes' Daily Telegraph 'Very clever: evocative, thought-provoking and hangs on the mind long after it is finished' Literary Review

Moon Tiger

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