Moon Tiger

by Penelope Lively

Overview

Winner of the Man Booker Prize and Shortlisted for the Golden Man Booker Prize

The elderly Claudia Hampton, a best-selling author of popular history; lies alone in a London hospital bed. Memories of her life still glow in her fading consciousness, but she imagines writing a history of the world. Instead, Moon Tiger is her own history, the life of a strong, independent woman, with its often contentious relations with family and friends. At its center — forever frozen in time, the still point of her turning world — is the cruelly truncated affair with Tom, a British tank commander whom Claudia knew as a reporter in Egypt during World War II.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802135339
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	09/18/1997
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	278,309
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Penelope Lively is the author of numerous award-winning novels, including the Man Booker Prize–winning Moon Tiger.

Ruth Urquhart trained at East 15 Acting School and has spent the last twenty years working as an actor in theater, film, TV, and education. Ruth is an Audible Approved Producer and has narrated over 100 titles. She lives in Yorkshire, England, with her partner, two children, and an array of animals.

Hometown:

London, England

Date of Birth:

March 17, 1933

Place of Birth:

Cairo, Egypt

Education:

Honors Degree in Modern History, University of Oxford, England, 1955

Editorial Reviews

“A powerful, moving and beautifully wrought novel about the ways in which lives are molded by personal memory and the collective past.” —Boston Globe

“Emotionally, Moon Tiger is kaleidoscopic, deeply satisfying. The all too brief encounter between Claudia and Tom will surely rate as one of the most memorable of contemporary fictional affairs. This is one of the best novels I have read for years.” —The London Sunday Telegraph

“It pulls us in; it engages us and saddens us. It is also unexpectedly funny . . . It leaves its traces in the air long after you’ve put it away.” —The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

Lively recently won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for this deeply moving, elegantly structured novel. The heroine is Claudia Hampton, an unconventional historian and former war correspondent who lies in a hospital bed dying of cancer. Forced inward, Claudia moves randomly across time and place to reconstruct the strata of her life. But ``most lives have their core, their kernel, the vital centre''; Claudia's is the brief, tragic encounter she had in Egypt during the war with Tom Southern, a British tank officer on leave from battle. Tom's voice, along with those of her brother and daughter, joins Claudia's to shape a narrative that is a complex, intricately composed fugue. This haunting evocation of loss is Lively's finest achievement yet.Laurence Hull, Cannon Memorial Lib., Concord, N.C.

Library Journal

"It pulls us in; it engages us and saddens us. It is also unexpectedly funny.... It leaves its traces in the air long after you've put it away."

New York Times Book Review

"A powerful, moving and beautifully wrought novel about the ways in which lives are molded by personal memory and the collective past."

Boston Globe

Winner of the coveted Booker Prize, Moon Tiger is "a novel of exceptional intelligence and depth, by one of England's finest writers."

Publishers Weekly

"Emotionally, Moon Tiger is kaleidoscopic, deeply satisfaying. The all too brief encountere between Claudia and Tom will s urely rate as one of hte most memorable of contemporary fictional affairs. This is one of the best novels I have ready for years."

Telegraph The London Sunday