Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy

Author: Olivia Manning
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590177037
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 946

Book Description
One of Wall Street Journal’s “Five Best of World War II Fiction” A BBC miniseries starring Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh A spellbinding chronicle of a marriage and a panoramic account of Eastern Europe during WWII—the “finest fictional record of the war produced by a British writer” (Anthony Burgess) The Balkan Trilogy is the story of a marriage and of a war, a vast, teeming, and complex masterpiece in which Olivia Manning brings the uncertainty and adventure of civilian existence under political and military siege to vibrant life. Manning’s focus is not the battlefield but the café and kitchen, the bedroom and street, the fabric of the everyday world that has been irrevocably changed by war, yet remains unchanged. At the heart of the trilogy are newlyweds Guy and Harriet Pringle, who arrive in Bucharest—the so-called Paris of the East—in the fall of 1939, just weeks after the German invasion of Poland. Guy, an Englishman teaching at the university, is as wantonly gregarious as his wife is introverted, and Harriet is shocked to discover that she must share her adored husband with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Other surprises follow: Romania joins the Axis, and before long German soldiers overrun the capital. The Pringles flee south to Greece, part of a group of refugees made up of White Russians, journalists, con artists, and dignitaries. In Athens, however, the couple will face a new challenge of their own, as great in its way as the still-expanding theater of war.

The Balkan Trilogy

Author: Olivia Manning
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1786091569
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
'Her gallery of personages is huge, her scene painting superb, her pathos controlled, her humour quiet and civilised' Anthony Burgess 'So glittering is the overall parade - and so entertaining the surface - that the trilogy remains excitingly vivid; it amuses, it diverts and it informs, and to do these things so elegantly is no small achievement' Sunday Times 'A fantastically tart and readable account of life in eastern Europe at the start of the war' Sarah Waters The Balkan Trilogy is the story of a marriage and of a war, a vast, teeming, and complex masterpiece in which Olivia Manning brings the uncertainty and adventure of civilian existence under political and military siege to vibrant life. At the heart of the trilogy are newly-weds Guy and Harriet Pringle, who arrive in Bucharest - the so-called Paris of the East - in the autumn of 1939, just weeks after the German invasion of Poland. Guy's lecturing job awaits, alongside friends and the ever-ardent Sophie - but for Harriet, alone and naive, it's a strange new life. Other surprises follow: Romania joins the Axis, and before long German soldiers overrun the capital. The Pringles flee south to Greece, part of a group of refugees made up of White Russians, journalists, con artists, and dignitaries. In Athens, however, the couple will face a new challenge of their own...

The Great Fortune

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction in English
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Book Description

The Sum of Things

Author: Olivia Manning
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743246551
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
The third vol. of her Levant trilogy; the 1st is The danger tree, and the 2d is The battle lost and won.

School for Love

Author: Olivia Manning
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590173031
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
Jerusalem in 1945 is a city in flux: refugees from the war in Europe fill its streets and cafés, the British colonial mandate is coming to an end, and tensions are on the rise between the Arab and Jewish populations. Felix Latimer, a recently orphaned teenager, arrives in Jerusalem from Baghdad, biding time until he can secure passage to England. Adrift and deeply lonely, Felix has no choice but to room in a boardinghouse run by Miss Bohun, a relative he has never met. Miss Bohun is a holy terror, a cheerless miser who proclaims the ideals of a fundamentalist group known as the Ever-Readies—joy, charity, and love—even as she makes life a misery for her boarders. Then Mrs. Ellis, a fascinating young widow, moves into the house and disrupts its dreary routine for good. Olivia Manning’s great subject is the lives of ordinary people caught up in history. Here, as in her panoramic depiction of World War II, The Balkan Trilogy, she offers a rich and psychologically nuanced story of life on the precipice, and she tells it with equal parts compassion, skepticism, and humor.

The Levant Trilogy

Author: Olivia Manning
Publisher: George Weidenfeld & Nicholson
ISBN: 9781474622189
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
'Fantastically tart and readable' Sarah Waters 'An important 20th-century writer who paints a complex relationship between gender and power with wit and sensitivity' Lauren Elkin 'These books are clearly among the very best fiction about the Second World War' The Sunday Times 'One of the most gifted English writers of her generation' New York Times As Rommel advances in wartorn Egypt, the lives of the civilian population come under threat. One such couple are Guy and Harriet Pringle, who have escaped the war in Europe only to find the conflict once more on their doorstep, providing a volatile backdrop to their own personal battles. The civilian world meets the military through the figure of Simon Boulderstone, a young army officer who will witness the tragedy and tension of war on the frontier at first hand. An outstanding author of wartime fiction, Olivia Manning brilliantly evokes here the world of the Levant - Egypt, Jerusalem and Syria - with perception and subtlety, humour and humanity.

Cairo in the War 1939-1945

Author: Artemis Cooper
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780140247817
Category : British
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
This is an account of life, attitudes and events in Cairo during World War II. It describes the historical background of the events of the Desert War, as well as stories and descriptions of personalities gleaned from the Ambassador's diaries and those of her grandparents, Duff and Diana Cooper.

The Rain Forest

Author: Olivia Manning
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 144642958X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Book Description
From one of the classic writers of post-war English literature comes a stunning novel of love, betrayal and redemption. Married but obstinately set in their separate ways, Hugh and Kristy Foster know nothing of Al-Bustan, a far-flung island in the Indian Ocean. Too late they discover how it seethes with unrest and intrigue. Yet now when they need each other, the sullen, muttering forest seems only to intensify their differences.

Latest Readings

Author: Clive James
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300213190
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
The author reflects on his latest readings, and re-readings, undertaken after being diagnosed with terminal leukemia, combining thoughts on old favorites and new discoveries with personal musings on living and dying.

City of Fortune

Author: Roger Crowley
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679644261
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 536

Book Description
“The rise and fall of Venice’s empire is an irresistible story and [Roger] Crowley, with his rousing descriptive gifts and scholarly attention to detail, is its perfect chronicler.”—The Financial Times The New York Times bestselling author of Empires of the Sea charts Venice’s astounding five-hundred-year voyage to the pinnacle of power in an epic story that stands unrivaled for drama, intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. City of Fortune traces the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga, from the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, which culminates in the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, to the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499–1503, which sees the Ottoman Turks supplant the Venetians as the preeminent naval power in the Mediterranean. In between are three centuries of Venetian maritime dominance, during which a tiny city of “lagoon dwellers” grow into the richest place on earth. Drawing on firsthand accounts of pitched sea battles, skillful negotiations, and diplomatic maneuvers, Crowley paints a vivid picture of this avaricious, enterprising people and the bountiful lands that came under their dominion. From the opening of the spice routes to the clash between Christianity and Islam, Venice played a leading role in the defining conflicts of its time—the reverberations of which are still being felt today. “[Crowley] writes with a racy briskness that lifts sea battles and sieges off the page.”—The New York Times “Crowley chronicles the peak of Venice’s past glory with Wordsworthian sympathy, supplemented by impressive learning and infectious enthusiasm.”—The Wall Street Journal