Two Lives: Reading Turgenev & My House in Umbria

(Paperback)

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Description

Two beautiful, memorable novels in one volume, both focussing on women who retreat into their imaginations until the boundaries between what is real and what is not become blurred. In 'Reading Turgenev', an Irish country girl is trapped in a loveless marriage with an older man. But she finds unusual solace - in secret meetings with a man who shares her passion for Russian novels. This novella was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The second story, 'My House in Umbria' tells how romantic novelist Emily Delahunty helps the survivors of a bomb attack on a train and invents colourful pasts for her patients.

Reviews

As rich and moving as anything I have read in years. When I reached the end of both of these marvellous novels, I wanted to start right again at the beginning * Guardian *
These novels will endure. And in every beautiful sentence there is not a word out of place -- Anita Brookner * Spectator *
Inquisitive and loving. Trevor's is among the most subtle and sophisticated fiction being written today * New York Review of Books *
A writer at the peak of his powers; it reminds you what good reading is all about * Chicago Sun Times *
Reading Turgenev is one of the most beautiful and memorable things he has written. It stays in your memory -like Turgenev * Independent on Sunday *
He writes like an angel, but is determined to wring your heart. Trevor at his most evocative and haunting * Daily Mail *

Author Bio

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written many novels, and has won many prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. His most recent novel Love and Summer was longlisted for the Booker Prize. He is also a renowned short-story writer, and his two-volume Collected Stories was published by Viking penguin in 2009. In 1999 William Trevor received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement, and in 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. He now lives in Devon.