Details Books Supposing Human Croquet
| Original Title: | Human Croquet |
| ISBN: | 0312186886 (ISBN13: 9780312186883) |
| Edition Language: | English URL http://www.kateatkinson.co.uk/books/info/?t=Human-Croquet |
| Setting: | Warwickshire, England |
Kate Atkinson
Paperback | Pages: 352 pages Rating: 3.72 | 8792 Users | 719 Reviews
Narrative As Books Human Croquet
New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year Part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, this novel tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.
Specify Out Of Books Human Croquet
| Title | : | Human Croquet |
| Author | : | Kate Atkinson |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 352 pages |
| Published | : | November 12th 1999 by Picador (first published 1997) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Fantasy. Historical. Historical Fiction. Science Fiction. Time Travel. Literary Fiction. Contemporary. European Literature. British Literature |
Rating Out Of Books Human Croquet
Ratings: 3.72 From 8792 Users | 719 ReviewsWeigh Up Out Of Books Human Croquet
This book certainly presents me with a conundrum. The good: the writing style - it a pleasure to read; so jam-packed that, what in other books might seem overdone, here it was relatively light-hearted and literate. The moderate: the initial light-heartedness of the narrative belied the delicate, familiar strains of melancholy and fate, as the characters were lost and had suffered loss and had never entirely recovered.The book is an interesting ... melange, I am not even entirely certain how toKate Atkinson is an excellent writer. I've read Behind the Scenes at the Museum twice and all the Jackson Brody books. Human Croquet is her second book and deals with a young girl who has an odd habit of time-travelling, or does she? Human croquet is a game using people as hoops, balls (blindfolded) and controllers. Atkinson never has her characters play it, but she alludes to it often. In the book, Atkinson is the controller, bowling her characters this way and that, having them carom off each
I've read a few books by English author, Kate Atkinson. I like her Jackson Brodie detective series which starts with Case Histories. I also enjoyed her first book, Behind the Scenes at the Museum very much. Human Croquet was her second published book. In some ways it's similar to Behind the Scenes, what with the past and present look at the Fairfax family, but you can also add a different touch, magic realism (at least it's catalogued under that genre). All in all it's an interesting, quirky
Meh. This is a 3 star book through and through. On one hand it was entertaining and compelling. Although a bit tough to get into, Atkinson's intro and prologue do not follow the tone of the rest of the book; she attempts to weave a full cosmic discussion of the connection of matter and the spark of life in a way that was just trite. On the other hand, she steals her own plot line from Life after Life for a large portion about 2/3rds of the way through and her characters are not very likeable and
I read this book more or less at one sitting.I alternated between admiring this book - and getting quite cross with it. I thought it was a mess. But a brilliant one. On one level I admire the author's ambition. The book tries to be everything. It's a romance, a historical novel, a medidation on time and nature, a work of magic realism, a homage to Shakespearean comedy, and an inspired set of variations and improvisations.In places the writing is wonderfully noir, and there are sections which are
I loved this book. Infused with gothic melodrama, darkly comic and yet wistful, literate and playful. The narrator is deeply unreliable so those readers who prefer a straight tale will probably not like it although the book is an enthralling page turner. Yummy
I think that if there was some kind of Project Runway for the literary set, Tim Gunn would have taken one look at this book and told Kate Atkinson to bring an editing eye to it. There are so many interesting elements to thisthe humour, the meta elements, the mixture of history and imaginationbut for me it failed to become a cohesive whole, experimenting with different forms but never quite settling on one of its own. I could see what Atkinson was aiming forlooking at how the stories change with
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