Booker Prize-winning novelist Penelope Lively's latest masterpiece opens with a snapshot: Kath, before her death, at an unknown gathering, holding ...
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Dec 17, 2009
Mark
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Thank you, thank you, Penelope Lively. At a time when I really needed a good writer to tell a good story about real grown-ups dealing with real situations, this novel came along.
At the outset, landscape historian Glyn is rummaging around for a paper he needs and finds an old photograph kept by his wife, who had died some years before. In it, she is seen surreptitiously holding hands with his brother-in-law, Nick. This starts him out on a journey to discover what was going on, a More...
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Mar 31, 2008
Kate
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I looked forward with great anticipation to Penelope Lively's The Photograph. I believe it was selected for Today's Book Club, and most reviews have been very favorable. I must admit that I was highly saddened. I rarely discover a book I don't enjoy at least in some aspects, but I must say this one is an exception…I read the first few chapters, then thumbed through the rest, eager to find something that would peek my curiosity, really anything, that might capture my attention, but it in no way h
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Nov 10, 2007
Julie
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This book won the Booker Prize, so I sort of expected a little more. It was an engaging enough read, but I figured out the great revelation of the book halfway through and then just had to wait to get there. Most of the characters spend the book gradually realizing how self-absorbed they are, which is sort of the message of the book, but I found their self-absorption so annoying that I felt like I couldn't appreciate the lesson.
May 23, 2007
Lisa
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While the premise was totally interesting, the implementation of it was NOT. Plot was meandering (not in a good way), characters were almost all unsympathetic, and it was just sort of boring overall. I did read it and finish it, but only because I was on a 13-hour flight and had nothing better to do! Not horrible, but not as entertaining as I'd like a book to be.
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Jan 23, 2008
Diane
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I like most all books by Penelope Lively. This is a good story, well told with some disturbing things to think about. She explores the way we see and know and don't know those closest to us. It was disturbing to think that perhaps I am also more interested in myself than in the people I love so they are only out of focus pictures rather than real people.
Glyn discovers a photograph that indicates that his wife Kath, who died young about 10 years previously, had had an affair with h More...
Glyn discovers a photograph that indicates that his wife Kath, who died young about 10 years previously, had had an affair with h More...
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Jan 16, 2008
Marie
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Kind of a mystery. The husband of the deseased finds picture of his wife and a group of family and friends. The wife is holding the hand of her brother-in-law in and intimate way (??)
The photo is taken of the rear of the group (so secretive
intimate way) Solving the "crime" all the character defects of the family members and aquaintances hang out all over the place. All the while the lovely,lively and delightful deseased flits in and out of their memories for long episodes ( More...
The photo is taken of the rear of the group (so secretive
intimate way) Solving the "crime" all the character defects of the family members and aquaintances hang out all over the place. All the while the lovely,lively and delightful deseased flits in and out of their memories for long episodes ( More...
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Dec 29, 2011
Lori
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Jul 15, 2010
Bill
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I think Penelope Lively is one of the best authors around for fully imagining and characterizing human relationships because she expresses not only the way people communicate but also how we miscommunicate - with each other and even with ourselves.
This book is creative with style (the writing changes depending on whose mind we have entered). It is incredibly suspenseful as each of the main characters tries to grapple with and understand a person who is dead, with whom they were intim More...
This book is creative with style (the writing changes depending on whose mind we have entered). It is incredibly suspenseful as each of the main characters tries to grapple with and understand a person who is dead, with whom they were intim More...
Jan 03, 2010
Christine
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Nov 08, 2009
Shannon
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I picked this book up because it was the right length for my recent flight. I had no expectations and had not read this author previously.
Glyn finds a photograph of his dead wife and it changes everything for him. As he slowly investigates the implications of the photo, a picture of his wife gradually develops and grows slowly coming into a more perfect focus.
The novel is at once spare in its exploration of the meaning of the life of the central character, Kath, who is th More...
Glyn finds a photograph of his dead wife and it changes everything for him. As he slowly investigates the implications of the photo, a picture of his wife gradually develops and grows slowly coming into a more perfect focus.
The novel is at once spare in its exploration of the meaning of the life of the central character, Kath, who is th More...
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Oct 05, 2009
Jeni
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Apr 24, 2009
Colleen
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This was a slow-going, dense story but worth the reading. It certainly wasn't a feel-good story, but it made you think about how you treat the ones you love. Kath is the center of this book. Incredibly beautiful, everyone who saw her (especially men) fell in love with her. When the story opens, she has already died but you don't know how. Her husband discovers a photo of her and her brother-in-law that has been hidden in a book. It is clear from the photo that the two have shared an intimat
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Apr 16, 2009
Sarah
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Jan 11, 2009
Kimberly
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A man finds a photograph of his deceased wife and another man holding hands, and recognizes the man as someone very close to him. He sets out on a journey to discover more. That defining moment - finding the photograph - causes everything to be seen anew, with a cold eye of disillusion.
The only part of the story that fascinated me was the shifting points of view. A small circle of friends, all of whom have a share in the narration, each have a different view of Kath, which makes her More...
The only part of the story that fascinated me was the shifting points of view. A small circle of friends, all of whom have a share in the narration, each have a different view of Kath, which makes her More...
Jan 12, 2011
Diane
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I just finished reading this excellent book, and want to put in a review while it's still fresh in my mind. It's a poignant story, very well written, in an engaging writing style. The characters are Kath, who dominates the story, and those in her circle who knew her from many years back - sister, husband, brother-in-law, husband's partner, niece, and friend/confidant. Kath has been deceased for a number of years, and the discovery of an old photograph and its implications serve to bring abou
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Dec 03, 2010
Patrick
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I enjoyed Lively's excellent writing style. I think the English are really masters of writing characters of omission. In that way, this book is similar to Ishiguro's Remains of the Day. Whereas we learn about Kath through the other characters in the book and the way they saw her and reacted toward her, the Remains of the Day was a masterpiece because we found out about the real story through impressions that were left unsaid.
At its essence, this book is about love and what happen More...
At its essence, this book is about love and what happen More...
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Oct 25, 2010
Agatha
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My third book by this author. Continue to enjoy her writing style but think she's better than the topics she chooses, if that makes any sense. In this book, a widower discovers an old photo of his deceased wife holding hands with his brother-in-law. This launches him into questioning their whole entire life together, her life, did others see her as a philanderer, was he just the clueless cuckolded husband, etc. He spreads the news to his sister-in-law, who throws the guilty husband out of th
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May 27, 2009
Alexia561
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A story about a man finding a photograph showing his late wife holding hands with another man, and his journey to find out what happened and who she really was.
While not a bad book, it was easy to put down and forget to pick back up. I can't really understand why it was chosen for the Today Bookclub or how it won any awards, as it wasn't very engrossing.
Kath, the woman in the photograph, seems to have been a rather flighty but engaging woman. Her widower Glyn is not a ver More...
While not a bad book, it was easy to put down and forget to pick back up. I can't really understand why it was chosen for the Today Bookclub or how it won any awards, as it wasn't very engrossing.
Kath, the woman in the photograph, seems to have been a rather flighty but engaging woman. Her widower Glyn is not a ver More...
Sep 16, 2010
Melissa
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May 18, 2011
Andrew
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When Glyn Peters discovers a sealed envelope labelled "Don't Open--Destroy", he opens it to find a photo of his wife holding hands with her sister's husband. The photo is a candid that clearly caught what was meant to be a private, intimate moment, and Glyn finds that he no longer can trust what he thought he knew about his wife. He becomes obsessed with learning about his wife's secret life, and finding out if she had other affairs.
Of course this quest has a ripple effec More...
Of course this quest has a ripple effec More...
Jan 09, 2010
Lauren
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Mar 07, 2009
Tricia
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I've heard a lot about Penelope Lively over the years. One of the first people that I recall who was enthusiastic about her was the writer Mark Kramer, a well-known narrative journalist (among journalism folks anyway) I interviewed for a grad school class. (Incidentally, I ended up attending his Aboard the Narrative Train conference in Boston that same year and got to hear Tracy Kidder, Chip Scanlan and Susan Orlean speak--talk about cool!) I was making small-talk with Kramer after our interview
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Jun 06, 2010
Just finished reading this book. Picked it up in the store because the name got me thinking about one photograph of my own. And after reading the comments about this book, I knew that I have to read it...life goes by, you can live it alone you can live it with someone, but each and every one of us has a part that belongs only to us. A secret that we don't share with the world. Admit it, you also have a secret you are ashamed to tell and see no reason to share this secret with the world, because
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Nov 11, 2008
Chelsea
rated it:
A Re-read...I decided to take this book to the beach as my "third, shortest, maybe will read book" because I can't really remember anything about it- which is terrible! So, three weeks later and I'm still not past chapter 2. It's pretty dull and way too descriptive.
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Oct 03, 2007
Cecelia
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The redeeming quality of this book was that it had excellent character development. But I'm not sure the characters were excellent enough to cover up the fact that basically nothing happened in the whole book. I need at least a little plot to stay interested.
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Feb 07, 2009
Mom
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Kath, the main character of the book, has been dead for ten years when the book starts. Her husband finds a photograph that tells him that she had an affair and he begins to investigate. Kath was a compelling personality who had a profound influence on all those who knew her. Yet as the reader sees her through the eyes of her husband, her sister, her friend, her niece and others one cannot help but thing of the fable of the blind men and the elephant. It seems as though each has a picture of
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Aug 19, 2008
Chloe
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Aug 02, 2011
Mary Lou
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Nov 02, 2010
Maggie
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Because I love character-driven fiction, this was a perfect match for me. The story is told through the thoughts of six people who are either related to or friends of Katherine (Kath), a woman who died some years before the events in the book. A recently discovered photograph brings Kath back to the notice of Glyn, the widower, and through his investigation of the photograph the others begin examining long-passed events and motivations of Kath and others. My question from the beginning was wh
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Jan 29, 2012
Pythia
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Glyn trova per caso una busta, tra i documenti della moglie defunta, Kath, che nemmeno sapeva di avere conservato: "Non aprire". Come Alice, non sa resistere e si trova catapultato al di là dello specchio, dove scopre una vita che non è quella che credeva. Una foto ritrae una giovane Kath, con la mano intimamente intrecciata a quella del cognato, colti inavvertitamente da un fotografo sbadato.
Il racconto si dipana lungo i pensieri dei personaggi coinvolti, pensieri superficiali, c More...
Il racconto si dipana lungo i pensieri dei personaggi coinvolti, pensieri superficiali, c More...
