Product Description

"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....

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22244 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Inside Flap
"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"

From the Back Cover
`A highly original form of fictional autobiography as well as a fascinating insight into the seemingly random nature of destiny' Daily Mail

`Clever and laugh-out-loud funny ... this book is everybody's daydreams made real and is a complete joy' Daily Express

`Exceptionally acute, well done' Scotsman

`Realistic, thoughtful, understated. These elegant "confabulations" allow Lively's talents full range ... they evoke the times she has seen and the richness of other lives as well as her own' Sunday Telegraph

`Engaging, taut and finely measured' Sunday Times

`Entertaining, absorbing reading' Literary Review

About the Author
Penelope Lively has written many prize-winning novels for adults and children. They include: The Road To Lichfield, According To Mark, Moon Tiger (which won the 1987 Booker Prize), Heat Wave, Spiderweb and The Photograph. Penelope Lively lives in London N1.