Author:Irène Némirovsky,Sandra Smith
The second world war classic of life under Nazi occupation. Némirovsky was sent to Auschwitz in 1942.
In 1941, Irène sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. Némirovsky's death in Auschwitz in 1942 prevented her from seeing the day, sixty-five years later, that the existing two sections of her planned novel sequence, Suite Française, would be rediscovered and hailed as a masterpiece.
Set during the year that France fell to the Nazis, Suite Française falls into two parts. The first is a brilliant depiction of a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion; the second follows the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation. Suite Française is a novel that teems with wonderful characters struggling with the new regime. However, amidst the mess of defeat, and all the hypocrisy and compromise, there is hope. True nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places.
VINTAGE FRENCH CLASSICS - six masterpieces of French fiction in collectable editions.
'A masterpiece of French fiction' Sunday Times
'One of those rare books that demands to be read' Guardian
20 years on, [it] had an even greater impact on me than it did first time around... It is a remarkable and important novel
—— Jamie Byng , HeraldThe Sorrow of War vaults over all the American fiction that came out of the Vietnam war to take its place alongside the greatest war novel of the century, All Quiet on the Western Front. And this is to understate its qualities for, unlike All Quiet, it is a novel abut much more than war. A book about writing, about lost youth, it is also a beautiful agonising love story... a magnificent achievement
—— IndependentThis hauntingly beautiful novel, written by a North Vietnamese Army veteran, manages to humanise completely a people who up until now have usually been cast as robotic fanatics
—— Sunday TimesUnputdownable... This book should be required reading for anyone in American politics or policy-making. It should win the Pulitzer Prize, but it won't. It's too gripping for that
—— GuardianIf you want to become familiar with the lanista and the rudus, to know your scutum from your licium, then Kane's your man ... plenty of action
—— IndependentSpartacus has returned home to Thrace to find a new king has usurped his throne. He is seized and then sold to a Roman slave trader but he is a fighter and is destined for greater things.
Historically little is known about the real Spartacus but in the hands of Ben Kane his legend has been crafted into two fantastic novels and this is the first.
A breathless romp…a real feel for the grit and the mad excitement of fighting and a fascination with a culture, Rome, that was obsessed with blood-lust.
—— History TodayQuinn has a cinematic eye for narrative scope... Like all good novels this book tells us something new
—— SpectatorAn absorbing tribute to the city and its unsung heroes
—— Holly Kyte , Sunday TelegraphIn a novel of cinematic denouements, Quinn has reclaimed an intriguing chapter of Liverpool's past
—— Emma Hagestadt , IndependentA real page-tuner
—— Mail on SundayHe [Anthony] hooks you in with his deep, complex characters; he meticulously sets the scene
—— www.thebookbag.co.uk