Penelope Lively

At age sixty-five, retired anthropologist Stella Brentwood buys a cottage in Somerset, England, and slowly acquires neighbors, a dog, and a professional curiosity about the country village where she intends to settle and put down roots for the first time. She has spent her life studying communities of people--their families, social structures, how they welcome outsiders into their midst-remaining an observer, privileged to share in their intimate life but not obliged, and finally unwilling to tie herself closely to any lover, friend, or social group. In Somerset, Stella once again finds an opportunity to become part of the web of relationships that make for human society, as well as a chance at true friendship and love. How will independent-minded Stella, Lays reluctant to make an emotional commitment, respond? Written in exquisitely nuanced prose, Spiderweb is a captivating and deeply moving novel, a brilliant vision of our modern experience.

Spiderweb is the twelfth novel by Booker Prize winning author Penelope Lively.Stella Brentwood has led an exotic life for a woman of her time. Her frivolous best friend at Oxford, Nadine, knew early what she wanted: marriage and children. Stella, too, has had her share of passion, but her work as an anthropologist - always the outsider, the observer, was her priority.Now she has decided to root herself in Somerset landscape. But she finds that village society in England us far more chaotic, more unpredictable, and even more cruel, than she has known before. And that she cannot - or will not - conform to its rules.'She is a writer of great subtlety and understanding, and this is her best novel since Moon Tiger, which won the Booker Prize in 1987' The Scotsman'Evokes an escalating atmosphere of menace . . . Lively at her deceptively easy-to-read best' Daily Mail

A rediscovered children's classic, winner of the 1976 Whitbread Award, from the Booker Prize and Carnegie Medal-winning author of Moon Tiger and The Ghost of Thomas Kempe.

'A mischievous boy hero and an equally amusing ghoul,’ Guardian An iconic ghost story for children from Penelope Lively, one of the modern greats of British fiction. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there… James is fed up. His family has moved to a new cottage – with grounds that are great for excavations, and trees that are perfect for climbing – and stuff is happening. Stuff that is normally the kind of thing he does. But it's not him who's writing strange things on shopping lists and fences. It's not him who smashes bottles and pours tea in the Vicar's lap. It's a ghost – honestly. Thomas Kempe the 17th century apothecary has returned and he wants James to be his apprentice. No one else believes in ghosts. It's up to James to get rid of him. Or he'll have no pocket money or pudding ever again. The Ghost of Thomas Kempe is a timeless thriller, with a ghostly mystery and all the fun and mischief of being nine years old. Perfect for fans of Eva Ibbotson, Tom’s Midnight Garden and Helen Cresswell’s Moondial.

'Sharp, unsentimental and ruefully funny. A fascinating portrait not only of Lively but of the times through which she has lived' Daily Telegraph'Clever and poignant . . . there is much to enjoy. This is Lively at her best' Sunday Express'The twentieth century shook the world: it sobers me to have been one of those to see it through'Ten years ago, Penelope Lively, then eighty, wrote this powerful and compelling 'view from old age', reporting back on what she found. There are meditations on what it is like to be old as well as on how memory shapes us. There are intriguing examinations of the key personal as well as historical moments she has lived through and her thoughts on her own bookishness - both as reader and writer. Lastly, she turns to six treasured possessions to speak eloquently about who she is and where she's been - fragments of memories from a life well lived.Ten years on, Lively returns to the same questions in a new chapter, On Being Ninety, included in this new edition.'A superb study of memory and of her own voyage into the ninth decade of her life. Lively is a compelling, vitally interested witness to time past' Helen Dunmore, Observer, Books of the Year'Enthralling. Will delight all those who love Lively's novels' Daily Mail

Were prehistoric people like us? How did they live, what did they think and how did they see their world?3000 BC was a moment of great significance in the British Isles: Avebury, Stonehenge and many other major monuments were at vital stages in their construction and use, and writing – often regarded as the ultimate hallmark of civilisation – made its first appearance in Europe. In this revised and updated edition of Britain 3000 BC, Rodney Castleden uses the evidence of archaeological investigations to recreate the society, customs, economy, religion and ritual of Britain 5000 years ago, and to reveal the lost world of prehistoric people.From the well-built stone houses of Skara Brae on the Orkney Islands to the more primitive wooden huts of Honington in Suffolk, Castleden enters the dwellings and lifestyles of neolithic communities and delves into the nature of their society, their trading networks and positive obsession with death. Britain 3000 BC will be fascinating reading for everyone who is interested in prehistory, archaeology and the magnificent monuments our ancient ancestors left behind.

Prilazhivaja novuju ramu v komnate na cherdake starogo kottedzha, rabochij ronjaet butylku iz zelenovatogo stekla, sprjatannuju za nalichnikom. S takogo neznachitelnogo proisshestvija i nachalas eta istorija v provintsialnom anglijskom gorodishke Ledsheme. No dalshe - bolshe. Na grifelnoj doske pered kalitkoj kto-to ostavil vesma zagadochnoe poslanie, napisannoe arkhaichnym jazykom: eto objavlenie, v kotorom predlagajutsja znakharskie i magicheskie uslugi. Semja ljuboznatelnogo Dzhejmsa Kharrisona pereekhala v etot ujutnyj skripuchij i prizemistyj dom "s istoriej" vsego dve nedeli nazad.Zatem nachinajutsja sobytija sovsem uzhe ni s chem nesoobraznye: novye nadpisi pojavljajutsja v samykh neozhidannykh mestakh, otkuda ni vozmis pri plotno zakrytykh dverjakh i stavnjakh voznikajut skvoznjaki, sama soboj padaet i razbivaetsja domashnjaja utvar, a potom prikljuchaetsja po-nastojaschemu sereznaja beda - v sosednem dome vspykhivaet pozhar. So vsemi etimi neurjaditsami, kotorye Dzhejms fiksiruet v svoem dnevnike, emu prikhoditsja razbiratsja v odinochku, potomu chto odni ne zhelajut emu verit, a drugie ne toropjatsja pomogat. Pravda, starushka iz doma naprotiv podskazyvaet adres stroitelja, kotoryj po sovmestitelstvu javljaetsja spetsialistom po ekzortsizmu i poltergejstam.Roman "Prizrak Tomasa Kempe", vpervye izdannyj v 1973 g., byl otmechen Medalju Karnegi, starejshej i prestizhnejshej britanskoj nagradoj v detskoj literature.Dlja srednego shkolnogo vozrasta.

Including new and never-before-published stories and forgotten treasures: the definitive selection of short stories from one of our greatest living writers, curated by the author herselfWry, compassionate and glittering with wit, Penelope Lively's stories get beneath the everyday to the beating heart of human experience.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.From new and never-before-published stories to forgotten treasures, Metamorphosis showcases the very best from a literary master.'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'Superb...The writing is as good as it gets' The Times'Lively has guts and style. You are in the hands of a master' Daily Mail

'DO NOT OPEN - DESTROY.'The words on the envelope he has found are written in Kath's hand, but Glyn ignores his wife's instruction and breaks the seal. His life unwinds. For he finds a photograph showing Kath holding hands with another man. Unable to forget this long-ago act of betrayal he recklessly excavates the past, seeking out who knew what, tearing apart other lives as he tries to dig up the roots of his wife's infidelity. But what is the truth about Kath? What is the truth about their love? And can it survive this?'Remarkable' Sunday Telegraph

From the Booker Prize winner and national bestselling author, reflections on gardening, art, literature, and life Penelope Lively takes up her key themes of time and memory, and her lifelong passions for art, literature, and gardening in this philosophical and poetic memoir. From the courtyards of her childhood home in Cairo to a family cottage in Somerset, to her own gardens in Oxford and London, Lively conducts an expert tour, taking us from Eden to Sissinghurst and into her own backyard, traversing the lives of writers like Virginia Woolf and Philip Larkin while imparting her own sly and spare wisdom. "Her body of work proves that certain themes never go out of fashion," writes the New York Times Book Review, as true of this beautiful volume as of the rest of the Lively canon. Now in her eighty-fourth year, Lively muses, "To garden is to elide past, present, and future; it is a defiance of time."

'Wonderful. A manifesto of horticultural delight' Literary Review 'Beautiful. Perfect for literary garden lovers' Good Housekeeping'Rich and unusual, a book to treasure. Few recent gardening books come anywhere close to its style, intelligence and depth' Observer'The two central activities in my life - alongside writing - have been reading and gardening.'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 in Wonderland, and of writers and their gardens, from Virginia Woolf to Philip Larkin. 'Exquisite and original' Daily Telegraph 'A gentle survey of the garden's place in Western culture, which morphs into a personal meditation on time, memory and a life well lived' i 'Scholarly bedtime reading' The Times, Books of the Year

The classic ghost story from Penelope Lively, one of the modern greats of British fiction for adults and children alike. James is fed up. His family has moved to a new cottage – with grounds that are great for excavations, and trees that are perfect for climbing – and stuff is happening. Stuff that is normally the kind of thing he does. But it's not him who's writing strange things on shopping lists and fences. It's not him who smashes bottles and pours tea in the Vicar's lap. It's a ghost – honestly. Thomas Kempe the 17th century apothecary has returned and he wants James to be his apprentice. No one else believes in ghosts. It's up to James to get rid of him. Or he'll have no pocket money or pudding ever again. An iconic ghost story for children, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe is adored by generations of readers.

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

'Lively remains a sublime storyteller' Guardian on How It All Began'More stylish than many writers half her age . . . Lively knows a thing of two about storytelling.' The Times on How It All Began A dream house that is hiding something sinister; two women having lunch who share a husband; an old woman doing her weekly supermarket shop with a secret past that no one could guess; a couple who don't know each other at all even after fifteen years together; and, in the story from which this collection takes its name, a bird and a servant girl in ancient Pompeii who cannot converse, but share a perfect understanding. In this new and varied collection of short stories, Penelope Lively shows that she remains a master of her craft, and one of our finest English writers.

No.40 Norham Gardens, Oxford, is the home of Clare Mayfield, her two aged aunts and two lodgers. The house is a huge Victorian monstrosity, with rooms all full of old furniture, old papers, old clothes, memorabilia - it is like a living museum.Clare discovers in a junk room the vividly painted shield which her great-grandfather, an eminent anthropologist, had brought back from New Guinea. She becomes obsessed with its past and determined to find out more about its strange tribal origins.Dreams begin to haunt her - dreams of another country, another culture, another time, and of shadowy people whom she feels are watching her. Who are they, and what do they want?

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

"Sharp, unsentimental and ruefully funny. A fascinating portrait not only of Lively but of the times through which she has lived" -- Daily Telegraph (London) Rare personal reflections from "one of our most talented writers" (The New York Times Book Review), Booker Prize winner Penelope Lively At age eighty, Penelope Lively wrote this powerful and compelling 'view from old age', reporting back on what she found. There are meditations on what it is like to be old as well as on how memory shapes us. There are intriguing examinations of the key personal as well as historical moments she has lived through and her thoughts on her own bookishness - both as reader and writer. Lastly, she turns to six treasured possessions to speak eloquently about who she is and where she's been - fragments of memories from a life well lived.