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Beautifully and poignantly told, Marking Time is the second novel
in Elizabeth Jane Howard's bestselling Cazalet Chronicles. Home
Place, Sussex, 1939. As the shadows of the Second World War roll
in, banishing the sunlit days of childish games and trips to the
coast, a new generation of Cazalets take up the family's story.
Louise, who dreams of becoming a great actress, finds herself
facing the harsh reality that her parents have their own lives with
secrets, passions and yearnings. Clary, an aspiring writer, learns
that her beloved father is now missing somewhere on the shores of
France. And sensitive, imaginative Polly feels stuck - stuck
without a vocation, stuck without information about her mother's
illness, stuck without anything except her nightmares about the
war. With cover artwork exclusively designed by artist Luke Edward
Hall, this is the second volume of the extraordinary Cazalet
Chronicles and a perfect addition to your collection. Marking Time
is followed by Confusion, the third book in the series. 'Charming,
poignant and quite irresistible . . . to be cherished and shared' -
Times
The Cazalet Chronicles continues with the third in the series,
Confusion, set in the height of the Second World War and where
chaos has become a way of life for the Cazalet family. It's 1942
and the dark days of war seem never-ending. Scattered across the
still-peaceful Sussex countryside and air-raid-threatened London,
the divided Cazalets begin to find the battle for survival echoing
the confusion in their own lives. Headstrong, independent Louise
surprises the whole family when she abandons her dreams of being an
actress and instead makes a society marriage. Polly and Clary, now
in their late teens, finally fulfil their ambition of living
together in London. But the reality of the city is not quite what
they imagined, and Polly is struggling to come to terms with the
death of her mother and manage her grieving father. Clary,
meanwhile, is painfully aware that what she lacks in beauty she
makes up for in intelligence, and is the only member of the family
who believes that her father might not be dead. With cover artwork
exclusively designed by artist Luke Edward Hall, this is the
heartbreaking and heartwarming third instalment of Elizabeth Jane
Howard's bestselling series. It is followed by the fourth book,
Casting Off. 'Charming, poignant and quite irresistible . . . to be
cherished and shared' - The Times
All Change is the fifth and final volume in Elizabeth Jane Howard's
bestselling The Cazalet Chronicles, where the old world begins to
fade from view and a new dawn emerges. It is the 1950s and as the
Duchy, the Cazalets' beloved matriarch, dies, she takes with her
the last remnants of a disappearing world - houses with servants,
class, and tradition - in which the Cazalets have thrived. Louise,
now divorced, becomes entangled in a painful affair, while Polly
and Clary must balance marriage and motherhood with their own ideas
and ambitions. Hugh and Edward, now in their sixties, are feeling
ill-equipped for this modern world, while Villy, long abandoned by
her husband, must at last learn to live independently. But it is
Rachel, who has always lived for others, who will face her greatest
challenges yet. As the Cazalets descend on Home Place for
Christmas, only one thing is certain: nothing will ever be the same
again. With cover artwork exclusively designed by artist Luke
Edward Hall, this is the heartbreaking and heartwarming final
instalment of Elizabeth Jane Howard's bestselling series. 'She is
one of those novelists who shows, through her work, what the novel
is for . . . She helps us to do the necessary thing - open our eyes
and our hearts' - Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall
The Second World War has finally ended and so begins a new era of
freedom and opportunity for the Cazalet family. Elizabeth Jane
Howard's magnificent Cazalet Chronicles continues with Casting Off,
the fourth novel in the saga. The Cazalet cousins are now in their
twenties, trying to piece together their lives in the aftermath of
the war. Louise is faced with her father's new mistress and her
mother's grief at his betrayal, while suffering in a loveless
marriage of her own. Clary is struggling to understand why her
beloved father chose to stay in France long after it was safe to
return to Britain, and both she and Polly are madly in love with
much older men. Polly, Clary and Louise must face the truth about
the adult world, while their fathers - Rupert, Hugh and Edward -
must make choices that will decide their own, and the family's,
future. With cover artwork exclusively designed by artist Luke
Edward Hall, this is the heartbreaking and heartwarming fourth
instalment of Elizabeth Jane Howard's bestselling series. It is
followed by All Change, the fifth and final book in the series.
'Charming, poignant and quite irresistible . . . to be cherished
and shared' - The Times
In "Families" Jane Howard informally visits many dozens of families
and tries to discover what makes the best ones work so well.
Families are not dying, she finds, although they are evolving in
various ways. From the tightest-knit nuclear family or extended
clan to the most fragile new commune, the family in one guise or
another remains everybody's most basic hold on reality. We may run
away from our families as many do, but no sooner do we escape than
we find another one, often very much like it. Sympathetically, with
immense thrust, she crosses the continent to discover families'
myths, jokes, and rituals. She leafs through their scrapbooks, sits
on their porches, and takes part, when she can, in their feasts and
celebrations. She talks to a father of eighteen, several double
first cousins, stepchildren, multiple godmothers, an honorary
relative of an Indian tribe, and a nine-year-old boy who has no
family but his mother. She sits with a matriarch on the front stoop
of a ghetto house, goes camping with a family in Mexico, has
Thanksgiving with another in Iowa, and orders pizza with a Greek
clan in Massachusetts. Howard reports on visits to conventional
Southern and Jewish households and to innovative ones whose
members, lacking a common history, plan on building common futures
as if water were after all as thick as blood. She examines the
notion that "there are ways and ways of achieving kinship, of which
birth and marriage are only the most obvious." Millions of clans
and families all over the United States continue to celebrate,
quarrel, disband, reunite, and endure. Jane Howard makes us realize
how our lives are interwoven both with the families we are born
into and with those we invent as we go through life. "Families" is
compassionate, provocative, and profound. The paperback edition of
this important work will be essential reading for all those with an
interest in the study of familial bonds, particularly sociologists,
anthropologists, and psychologists.
Honest and unflinching, this book illuminates the literary world of the latter half of the 20th century, as well as giving a personal insight into the life of Elizabeth Jane Howard.
In 'Families' Jane Howard informally visits many dozens of families
and tries to discover what makes the best ones work so well.
Families are not dying, she finds, although they are evolving in
various ways. From the tightest-knit nuclear family or extended
clan to the most fragile new commune, the family in one guise or
another remains everybody's most basic hold on reality. We may run
away from our families as many do, but no sooner do we escape than
we find another one, often very much like it. Sympathetically, with
immense thrust, she crosses the continent to discover families'
myths, jokes, and rituals. She leafs through their scrapbooks, sits
on their porches, and takes part, when she can, in their feasts and
celebrations. She talks to a father of eighteen, several double
first cousins, stepchildren, multiple godmothers, an honorary
relative of an Indian tribe, and a nine-year-old boy who has no
family but his mother. She sits with a matriarch on the front stoop
of a ghetto house, goes camping with a family in Mexico, has
Thanksgiving with another in Iowa, and orders pizza with a Greek
clan in Massachusetts. Howard reports on visits to conventional
Southern and Jewish households and to innovative ones whose
members, lacking a common history, plan on building common futures
as if water were after all as thick as blood. She examines the
notion that "there are ways and ways of achieving kinship, of which
birth and marriage are only the most obvious." Millions of clans
and families all over the United States continue to celebrate,
quarrel, disband, reunite, and endure. Jane Howard makes us realize
how our lives are interwoven both with the families we are born
into and with those we invent as we go through life. 'Families' is
compassionate, provocative, and profound. The paperback edition of
this important work will be essential reading for all those with an
interest in the study of familial bonds, particularly sociologists,
anthropologists, and psychologists.
Elizabeth Jane Howard, acclaimed author of the Cazalet Chronicles, once said that she would certainly have been a gardener had she not become a writer first. In Green Shades: An Anthology of Plants, Gardens and Gardeners, she brings together a diverse and fascinating selection of garden writing that spans the centuries, the seasons and the species.
Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics with ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover.
The contents are delightfully eclectic and wide-ranging, practical as well as lyrical – she pays homage to the great English landscape artists of the eighteenth century and to the great women gardeners such as Vita Sackville-West. There’s advice from Pliny on how walnuts can be used to dye hair and Joseph Addison encourages blackbirds to gorge on his cherry trees. Linking the numerous extracts is Elizabeth Jane Howard’s perceptive and highly personal commentary, which skilfully leads the reader from one subject to the next.
TV crews and foreign correspondents come and go, but former BBC
correspondent Jane Howard made her home in Iran for five years,
raising her two young children there. Her experience took her
beyond the headlines and horror stories and into the lives of
everyday Iranian women. Her brilliantly observed report, "Inside
Iran: Women's Lives, takes the reader from dinner in a presidential
palace to tea in a nomad's tent. From women working in rice paddies
and tea plantations to highly educated women in Tehran who have
been banned from working in their professions. The image of Iranian
women is still one of anonymous ranks of revolutionary marchers,
clad in black. But underneath their black chadors or drab
raincoats, they not only wear jeans, T-shirts and Lycra leggings,
but they also work outside the home, drive, play sports and even
become politicians. While many women haven't regained the
Western-style freedom they lost in the revolution of 1979, others
have won rights they never had before. Practically every girl has
access to primary education now, and even remote villages have
clean drinking water, a paved road and a school. Yet Islamic law
continues to impose many inequities and constraints. In cash terms,
for example, a woman's life is worth half that of a man's, and in
the courtroom, two women have to give evidence to equal one man's
testimony. Howard describes how the atmosphere changed with the
election of the reformist president Khatami, and Iranians dared to
demand more freedom and discuss their problems openly. She has
interviewed government officials and opinion formers, and has
traveled throughout the country to meet with women from all sectors
of society. The result is afascinating story of struggle and
change, vividly documenting what it means to be a woman in Iran.
The wonderful sequel to The Light Years returns readers to Britain
in September, 1939, as war breaks out. Sheltered Louise, now 16,
goes from cooking school to London parties. For 14-year-old Polly,
the terrors of war cannot forestall the pangs of adolescence. And
though Clary's father has been reported missing since Dunkirk, she
holds to the belief that he's alive.
From the bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles comes
Elizabeth Jane Howard's Falling. Harry Kent is a sensitive man in
late middle age, a reader and a thinker, without means perhaps but
not without charm. Daisy has recovered from her unhappy past by
learning to be self-sufficient, and viewing trust as a weakness.
But there is still a part of her that yearns to be cared for once
more. It is this part that Henry sees, and with dedicated and
calculated patience he works at her defences. So despite all
attempts to resist his attentions, Daisy finds herself falling
under Henry's spell . . .
With an introduction by Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall.
Originally published in 1956, The Long View is Elizabeth Jane
Howard's uncannily authentic portrait of one marriage and one
woman. Observant and heartbreaking, written with exhilarating wit,
it is a gut-wrenching account of the birth and death of a
relationship - as extraordinary as it is timeless. One of his
secret pleasures was the loading of social dice against himself. He
did not seem for one moment to consider the efforts made by kind or
sensitive people to even things up: or if such notions ever
occurred to him, he would have observed them with detached
amusement, and reloaded more dice. In 1950s London, Antonia Fleming
faces the prospect of a life lived alone. Her children are now
adults; her husband Conrad, a domineering and emotionally complex
man, is a stranger. As Antonia looks towards her future, the novel
steadily moves backwards in time, tracing Antonia's relationship
with Conrad to its beginning in the 1920s, through years of mistake
and motherhood, dreams and war.
The composer Arthur Somervell was also an Inspector of Schools with
special responsibility for the teaching of music. His collected
writings set forth his philosophy of music education and cast light
on musical life between the 1890s and his death in 1937. Sir Arthur
Somervell (1863-1937), composer and educationist, influenced the
musical and educational life of England over four decades.
Remembered today principally as an accomplished composer of songs
and choral works, he also worked for twenty-eight years as one of
His Majesty's Inspectors of Schools (HMI), with special
responsibility for the teaching of music. Towards the end of his
life Somervell gathered together a number of his articles, in
whichhe expounds a passionate philosophy of music education, makes
candid remarks about musical life and musical education in England,
and provides insights into the sometimes bitter debate with Cecil
Sharp about folk song. These collected writings have now been
prepared for publication by Gordon Cox, together with some
unpublished speeches and letters, enabling musicologists and music
educators to re-evaluate the significance of Somervell's
contribution to the musical and educational life of his time.
GORDON COX is senior lecturer in education at the University of
Reading.
All the longing, excitement and poignant comedy of adolescence are
captured in Elizabeth Jane Howard's first novel The Beautiful
Visit, about a young girl growing up in the years around the First
World War. Life had been distinctly lacking in possibilities -
until The Visit. But, ever afterwards, just remembering the smell
of the Lancings' house would enrapture her, taking her back to that
very first day when Lucy and Gerald had picked her up from the
station . . . Beginning and ending with a visit to the same family,
it is a novel full of love, loss, and the ever-lasting effect of
war.
From the lauded, bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles,
Something in Disguise paints a candid picture of a family in
crisis, from the ever witty Elizabeth Jane Howard. May's second
marriage to Colonel Herbert Brown-Lacy is turning out to be a
terrible mistake. Her son, Oliver, leaves home only to drift from
one affair to another; his sister Elizabeth follows him, yearning
for some kind of secure relationship. While even Alice, Herbert's
meek daughter, is driven into marriage to escape her father's
sinister behaviour . . . At once a candid depiction of a post-war
family on the cusp of change and a touching love story, Something
in Disguise embodies the startling truth, wit and daring that
Elizabeth Jane Howard is renowned for.
From the lauded, bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles, in
Odd Girl Out, Elizabeth Jane Howard reveals with devastating
accuracy a marriage put in a most destructive situation. Anna and
Edmund Cornhill have a happy marriage and a lovely home. They are
content, complete, absorbed in their private idyll. Arabella, who
comes to stay one lazy summer, is rich, rootless and amoral - and,
as they find out, beautiful and loving. With her elegant prose the
author traces the web of love and desire that entangles these
three; but it is Arabella who finally loses out.
From the bestselling author of The Cazalet Chronicles, The Sea
Change is a witty yet heart-rending story of a marriage in crisis.
Emmanuel is a famous playwright. Lillian is his sickly and
embittered wife. They have never fully buried the memory of their
dead daughter, Sarah. Rich but discontented, they flit from capital
to capital in the company of their hero-worshipping young manager.
Then Alberta, straight from an English vicarage and the pages of
Jane Austen, is appointed as Emmanuel's secretary. This prim and
utterly delightful figure helps the family in ways they didn't know
they needed. One by one the leopards change their spots . . .
From the lauded, bestselling author of The Cazalet Chronicles,
After Julius is Elizabeth Jane Howard's funny yet touching story of
a family brought together yet falling apart. It is twenty years
since Julius died, but his last heroic action still affects the
lives of the people he left behind. Emma, his youngest daughter,
twenty-seven years old and afraid of men. Cressida, her sister, a
war widow, blindly searching for love in her affairs with married
men. Esme, Julius's widow, still attractive at fifty-eight, but
aimlessly lost in the routine of her perfect home. Felix, Esme's
old lover, who left her when Julius died and who is still plagued
by guilt for his action. And Dan, an outsider. Throughout a
disastrous - and revelatory - weekend in Sussex, the influence of
the dead Julius slowly emerges . . .
Howard's definitive biography of the woman who was one of the
giants of the 20th century covers Mead's professional
accomplishments, three marriages, intense friendships, and
groundbreaking travels. 16-page photograph insert.
From the bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles comes
Elizabeth Jane Howard's Love All. The late 1960s. For Persephone
Plover, the daughter of distant and neglectful parents, the
innocent, isolated days of childhood are long past. Now she must
deal with the emotions of an adult world . . . Meanwhile in Melton,
in the West Country, Jack Curtis - a self-made millionaire - has
employed Persephone's aunt, a garden designer in her sixties, to
deal with the terraces and glasshouses of the once beautiful local
manor house he has acquired at vast expense. He also has plans to
start an arts festival, as a means to avoid the loneliness of the
recently divorced. Also in Melton are the Musgrove siblings, Thomas
and Mary, whose parents originally owned and lived in Melton House.
They are still trying to cope with emotional consequences of the
tragic death of Thomas's wife, Celia . . . as is Francis, Celia's
brother, who has come to live with them and thereby, perhaps, to
find his way through life.
'Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been
some turning-point in one's own experience' - Elizabeth Bowen,
author of The Heat of the Day Intelligent and haunting, with echoes
of Brief Encounter, this is a love story by one of the best British
writers of the 20th century. During summer games of hide and seek
Harriet falls in love with Vesey and his elusive, teasing ways.
When he goes to Oxford she cherishes his photograph and waits for a
letter that never comes. Years pass and Harriet stifles her dreams;
with a husband and daughter, she excels at respectability. But then
Vesey reappears and her marriage seems to melt away. Harriet is
older, it is much too late, but she is still in love with him.
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