FITZGERALD PENELOPE

(P/B) THE BOOKSHOP
In a small East Anglian town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. Hardborough becomes a battleground. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, and as a result, she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important, but natural and even supernatural forces too. Her fate will strike a chord with anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) OFFSHORE
On Battersea Reach, a mixed bag of the temporarily lost and the patently eccentric live on houseboats, rising and falling with the tide of the Thames. There is good-natured Maurice, by occupation a male prostitute, by chance a receiver of stolen goods. And Richard, an ex-navy man whose boat, much like its owner, dominates the Reach. Then there is Nenna, an abandoned wife and mother of two young girls running wild on the muddy foreshore, whose domestic predicament, as it deepens, will draw this disparate community together. (From the publis...
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(H/B) OFFSHORE, HUMAN VOICES, THE BEGINNING OF SPRING
Sixty-one when she published her first novel, Penelope Fitzgerald based many subsequent books on the experiences of a long and varied life. Offshore, which won the Booker Prize in 1979, explores her time living on a barge at Battersea Reach. Human Voices takes place in the BBC where she worked during World War II. Both are vivid, intimate pictures of ordinary life, startling, sad and funny by turns, conjuring up complex worlds with the economy of poetry. The Beginning of Spring is an historical novel operating on a larger canvas. It presen...
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(H/B) THE BOOKSHOP, THE GATE OF ANGELS AND THE BLUE FLOWER
Penelope Fitzgerald, who died in 2000, emerged late in life as one of the most remarkable English writers of the last century. The three novels in this volume all display her characteristic wit, intellectual breadth and narrative brilliance, applied to the different traditional forms into which she breathed new life. The Bookshop is a contemporary comedy of manners, set in a provincial town. In The Gate of Angels romance is combined with the novel of ideas; while The Blue Flower revitalizes historical drama in a study of the eighteenth-cen...
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(P/B) THE BLUE FLOWER
The year is 1794 and Fritz, passionate, idealistic and brilliant, is seeking his father's permission to announce his engagement to his heart's desire: twelve-year-old Sophie. His astounded family and friends are amused and disturbed by his betrothal. What can he be thinking? Tracing the dramatic early years of the young German who was to become the great romantic poet and philosopher Novalis, 'The Blue Flower' is a masterpiece of invention, evoking the past with a reality that we can almost feel. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) THE BOOKSHOP
Hardborough becomes a battleground. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, and as a result, she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important, but natural and even supernatural forces too. Her fate will strike a chord with anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) INNOCENCE
A new edition of the Booker Prize winner Penelope Fitzgerald's best-loved novel of romance in post-war Italy, with a new introduction by Julian Barnes. The Ridolfis are a Florentine family of long lineage and little money. It is 1955, and the family, like its decrepit villa and farm, has seen better days. Only eighteen-year-old Chiara shows anything like vitality.Chiara has set her heart on Salvatore, a young and brilliant doctor who resolved long ago to be emotionally dependent on no one. Faced with this, she calls on her English girlfrie...
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(P/B) EDWARD BURNE-JONES

Η ΠΥΛΗ ΤΩΝ ΑΓΓΕΛΩΝ
Ένα ατύχημα με ποδήλατο φέρνει κοντά δύο νέους από διαφορετική προέλευση και με διαφορετικά πεπρωμένα - τον Φρεντ, βοηθό καθηγητή στο Καίμπριτζ και την Νταίζη, δόκιμη νοσοκόμα από λαϊκή συνοικία του Λονδίνου. Ο έρωτας είναι κεραυνοβόλος, αλλά τα εμπόδια σχεδόν ανυπέρβλητα: η υποχρεωτική αγαμία των καθηγητών που διδάσκουν στο κολλέγιο του Φρεντ, η απαγόρευση στις γυναίκες έστω και να διαβούν τις πύλες του, οι κοινωνικές διαφορές. [...] (Από την παρουσίαση στο οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου)...
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ΤΟ ΓΑΛΑΖΙΟ ΑΝΘΟΣ
Το Γαλάζιο Άνθος διαδραματίζεται στις μικρές επαρχιακές και πανεπιστημιακές πόλεις ανάμεσα στη Λιψία και το Βερολίνο στο τέλος ακριβώς του 18ου αιώνα. Μας διηγείται την ιστορία του νεαρού και ευφυέστατου Φριτζ φον Χάρντενμπεργκ, απόφοιτου των Πανεπιστημίων της Ιένας, της Λιψίας και του Βίτενμπεργκ, όπου σπούδασε διαλεκτική και μαθηματικά και ο οποίος αργότερα έγινε ο μεγάλος ρομαντικός ποιητής και φιλόσοφος Νοβάλις. Ο γεμάτος πάθος και ιδεαλιστικά συναισθήματα Φριτζ χρειάζεται την άδεια του πατέρα του για να αναγγείλει τον αρραβώνα του με ...
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