Details About Books Human Croquet
| Title | : | Human Croquet |
| Author | : | Kate Atkinson |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 352 pages |
| Published | : | November 12th 1999 by Picador (first published 1997) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Fantasy. Historical. Historical Fiction. Science Fiction. Time Travel. Literary Fiction. Contemporary. European Literature. British Literature |
Kate Atkinson
Paperback | Pages: 352 pages Rating: 3.72 | 8792 Users | 719 Reviews
Rendition Conducive To Books Human Croquet
New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year Part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, this novel tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.Declare Books As Human Croquet
| Original Title: | Human Croquet |
| ISBN: | 0312186886 (ISBN13: 9780312186883) |
| Edition Language: | English URL http://www.kateatkinson.co.uk/books/info/?t=Human-Croquet |
| Setting: | Warwickshire, England |
Rating About Books Human Croquet
Ratings: 3.72 From 8792 Users | 719 ReviewsWeigh Up About Books Human Croquet
I really enjoyed this book. It is well written and chock full of eccentric characters realistically rendered. I'm rather fond of teenage characters( all those years of teaching high school) and Isobel is an endearing narrator . Her wry and witty perceptions of life prevent the tragic experiences she encounters from becoming too overwhelmingly depressing.While I expected time travel to play a more significant role in the book it seemed almost an afterthought . I usually don't enjoy that type ofHuman Croquet is narrated by Isobel Fairfax and is the story of her family and their neighbours in the village of Lythe. Isobel and Charles exotic mother disappeared when they were very young, followed soon after by their father, leaving the children in the care of their steely, old fashioned grandmother and their irascible Aunt Vinny. Even after their father returns several years later no one seems willing to talk about what happened or why. In fact, lots of people in Lythe are hiding things
Meh. This is a 3 star book through and through. On one hand it was entertaining and compelling. Although a bit tough to get into, Atkinson's intro and prologue do not follow the tone of the rest of the book; she attempts to weave a full cosmic discussion of the connection of matter and the spark of life in a way that was just trite. On the other hand, she steals her own plot line from Life after Life for a large portion about 2/3rds of the way through and her characters are not very likeable and
Notes for Human Croquet by Kate AtkinsonIt was a book where it helped to be familiar with Atkinsons style. It was written between "Behind the scenes at the museum" and "Life after Life", and thematically the three novels follow each other and develop the underlying tropes as they go. That is not to say that the novels are a trilogy, the characters are not the same. Not the same in the story sense, but they are the same in the sense of a representative type. Atkinson does not disappoint, as
I loved this book. Infused with gothic melodrama, darkly comic and yet wistful, literate and playful. The narrator is deeply unreliable so those readers who prefer a straight tale will probably not like it although the book is an enthralling page turner. Yummy
This book certainly presents me with a conundrum. The good: the writing style - it a pleasure to read; so jam-packed that, what in other books might seem overdone, here it was relatively light-hearted and literate. The moderate: the initial light-heartedness of the narrative belied the delicate, familiar strains of melancholy and fate, as the characters were lost and had suffered loss and had never entirely recovered.The book is an interesting ... melange, I am not even entirely certain how to
"Experimental style" are words that usually put me off reading something; "by Kate Atkinson" are words that always pull me in. And that's how it is with this: it's imaginative and Atkinson is clearly taking her writing skills for a walk, and there are bits where it sort of goes off-piste a bit - but overall, it works. I found myself drawn into the atmosphere and the characters and admiring the title for its cleverness and appropriateness. Not my favourite Atkinson to date, but certainly
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