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Hailed by critics as a benchmark in a career full of award-winning achievements, Making It Up is Penelope Lively's answer to the oft-asked question, "How much of what you write comes from your own life?" What if Lively hadn't escaped from Egypt, her birthplace, at the outbreak of World War II? What would her life have been like if she'd married someone else? From a hillside in Italy to an archaeological dig, the author explores the stories that could have been hers, fashioning a sublime dance between reality and imagination that confirms her reputation as a singular talent.
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Review:
Making It Up, Booker Prize-winning author Penelope Lively's cleverly termed "anti-memoir," is an enthralling examination of how both fate and free will can dramatically alter the lives of each and every one of us. Each of Lively's expertly crafted stories reveals the life she could have lived, had she, or another, chosen a different path. Yet in answering a series of "what if" questions, Lively does more than indulge her imagination; rather, she challenges her readers to examine the consequences of both the significant, and the seemingly trivial decisions we make every day.
About the Author:
Each of the stories in Making It Up deals with a different stage of Lively's life, and examines fictional alternatives to the roads she and others traveled. The Mozambique Channel charts the course of Shirley, a British nanny who accompanies her employer's family to Capetown following the German invasion of Egypt in 1942. In reality, Lively's family emigrated to Palestine; in this alternative universe, the family encounters tragedy on the open seas. The Battle of the Imjin River sends Lively's husband off to fight in the Korean War, thus changing his fate and in turn her destiny. Most compelling of all is Comet, in which the fictional Lively's untimely death is the catalyst for a half sister's second chance at love.
At the end of most narratives, Lively makes a point of reminding readers that while these stories are fictional, they are not impossible. Perhaps is this sense of endless possibility, so expertly conveyed by this talented veteran, that makes this collection so completely riveting. In the end, we are all the ones "for whom things might have spun off elsewhere, who might have become someone else." --Gisele Toueg
Penelope Lively is the author of numerous award-winning novels, including the Booker Prize-winning Moon Tiger. The Photograph, her most recent novel, was a Today Show Book Club Pick. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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- PublisherPenguin
- Publication date2006
- ISBN 10 0141021195
- ISBN 13 9780141021195
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages256
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Making It Up (Paperback)
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. 'Story-telling is an ingrained habit; I wouldn't know what else to do. But the mythology that is intriguing today is that of imagined alternatives. Somehow, choice and contingency have landed you where you are, as the person that you are, and the whole process seems so precarious that you look back at those climatic moments when things might have gone differently, when life might have spun off in some other direction, and wonder at this apparently arbitrary outcome.' In this fascinating new piece of fiction, Penelope Lively takes moments from her own life and asks 'what if' she had made other choices- what if she hadn't escaped from Alexandria at the outbreak of WWII? What would her life have been like if she had become pregnant when she was 18? If she had married someone else? If she taken a different job? If she had lived her life abroad? In this highly original work, Penelope Lively examines alternative destinies, choices and the moments in our lives when we could have chosen a different path . . . Examines alternative destinies, choices and the moments in our lives when we could have chosen a different path. The author takes moments from her own life and asks 'what if' she had made other choices: what if she hadn't escaped from Alexandria at the outbreak of WWII? What would her life have been like if she had become pregnant when she was 18? Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780141021195
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 256 pages. 7.68x5.08x0.83 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0141021195
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Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. Examines alternative destinies, choices and the moments in our lives when we could have chosen a different path. The author takes moments from her own life and asks 'what if' she had made other choices: what if she hadn't escaped from Alexandria at the outbreak of WWII? What would her life have been like if she had become pregnant when she was 18?. Seller Inventory # B9780141021195
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Book Description Condition: New. 2006. Paperback. Examines alternative destinies, choices and the moments in our lives when we could have chosen a different path. The author takes moments from her own life and asks 'what if' she had made other choices: what if she hadn't escaped from Alexandria at the outbreak of WWII? What would her life have been like if she had become pregnant when she was 18? Num Pages: 256 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 196 x 129 x 17. Weight in Grams: 186. . . . . . Seller Inventory # V9780141021195
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Book Description Condition: New. 2006. Paperback. Examines alternative destinies, choices and the moments in our lives when we could have chosen a different path. The author takes moments from her own life and asks 'what if' she had made other choices: what if she hadn't escaped from Alexandria at the outbreak of WWII? What would her life have been like if she had become pregnant when she was 18? Num Pages: 256 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 196 x 129 x 17. Weight in Grams: 186. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9780141021195
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 256 pages. 7.68x5.08x0.83 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # zk0141021195
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Making It Up
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Book Description Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - In this highly original work, Penelope Lively examines alternative destinies, choices and the moments in our lives when we could have chosen a different path and changed our lives completely. Seller Inventory # 9780141021195
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