Skip to main content

Giveaway: The Children's Book, by AS Byatt

Yup, I have a hardcover edition of this book to give away! Rules are the same: US entrants only, and you have a week to enter (until midnight on the 30th). Below is a description of the book from the inside cover (which is beautiful, by the way. The book will be released in the US on October 6th. Good luck!

Olive Wellwood is a famous writer, interviewed with her children gathered at her knee. For each of them she writes a separate private book, bound in different colours and placed on a shelf. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their rich cousins, children of a city stockbroker, 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 their own secrets. Into their world comes a young stranger, a working-class boy from the potteries, drawn by the beauty of the Museum's treasures. And in midsummer a German puppeteer arrives, bringing dark dramas. The world seems full of promise but the calm is already rocked by political differences, by Fabian arguments about class and free love , by the idealism of anarchists from Russia and Germany. The sons rebel against their parents' plans; the girls dream of independent futures, becoming doctors or fighting for the vote. This vivid, rich and moving saga is played out against the great, rippling tides of the day, taking us from the Kent marshes to Paris and Munich and the trenches of the Somme. Born at the end of the Victorian era, growing up in the golden summers of Edwardian times, a whole generation grew up unaware of the darkness ahead. In their innocence, they were betrayed unintentionally by the adults who loved them. In a profound sense, this novel is indeed the children's book.

Comments

Gwendolyn B. said…
I would love to read this! This is one of my favorite historical periods. And believe it or not, this will be a new author for me. Thanks for the chance!

geebee.reads AT gmail DOT com
Anonymous said…
I'd like to read this one, having just recently finished Possession. Thanks!
Anna Claire said…
Holy goodness, that book sounds amazing. I've never read AS Byatt and really want to. acvollers at gmail dot com.
Kristen M. said…
If I win this, I will give Byatt another chance. :)
Eva said…
A.S. Byatt is one of my favourite authors ever. :D I've read almost all of her books, so even though I'm already on the hold list at library for this one, I'd love to have my own copy!
Alicia said…
I would really love to read this book! Thanks!

adw7984 at gmail dot com
Veronica said…
This book sounds incredible! Sign me up please!!

veronicasbooks(at)gmail(dot)com
Unknown said…
This sounds like a great book. I have always wanted to read something by Byatt. Thanks!
Amanda said…
I'd love to win this! I have her Little Black Book of Stories. Thanks!

nycbookgirl at gmail dot com
Anonymous said…
I would love to win this book. And it looks so beautifully covered too.

misfitsalon at gmail dot com

Thanks!
Unknown said…
This is on my to-read list. I would love to give it a home!
Kerry said…
Can't plan on winning anything, so I imagine I will be checking this out of the library where I first discovered "Possession" years ago.

blissker@gmail.com
Kathleen said…
I would love to read this so plese enter me into the contest!
Booklogged said…
Throw my name into the draw, please. It's a beautiful book and the story sounds wonderful. Thanks, Katherine.

booklogged AT gmail DOT com
DesLily said…
this is already on my wish list!! I'd love a chance to win it!

DesLily@aol(dot)com
Unknown said…
I've been waiting to read this one -- thank for entering me!
Unknown said…
uh oh -- forgot my e-mail address:

agjuba at hotmail dot com
Linda said…
Sounds like a great novel; I enjoy this period, end of Victorian/early 20th century. Thanks for giveaway opportunity.
lcbrower40(at)gmail(dot)com
Irene said…
I gave my review copy away to an A.S. Byatt fan for review. I would like to read it, so please enter my name. Thank you!

cyeates AT nycap DOT rr DOT com
Unknown said…
Would love to see this one win the Booker, and would love to be entered. Thank you!
beth.docherty AT gmail DOT com
Bookfool said…
Oh, oh, oh, oh!!! So exciting! This one is on my wish list and I am aching to read it. Thanks for the drawing!

bookfoolery at yahoo dot com
Laura L. said…
Thanks for entering me - I would love to read this.
laura_carroll99[at]yahoo [dot] com
Anonymous said…
This looks like a wonderful read! What a gorgeous book. Please enter me.

journeythroughbooks@gmail.com
Zibilee said…
I am so excited about this book, and would love a chance to win it! Please enter me in this giveaway, and thanks for hosting it.

zibilee(at)figearo(dot)net

Thanks!
Melissa said…
I've heard good things about this one! Thanks for the great giveaway.

shhhimreading[at]hotmail[dot]com
traveler said…
Thanks for this wonderful giveaway. This book is intriguing and I would enjoy reading it greatly. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com

Popular posts from this blog

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m