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| Seaside Pleasures | |
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ANN LINGARD Littoralis Press 2003 ISBN 0-9544572-0-X £8.99 + p&p |
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When Matt Myers decides to spend the summer with his mother at the Shell House, he little guesses that he is about to step into the minefield of his family’s past and recent history … Anne Church, a young Victorian; Matt, art student; Hazel Myers, his mother; malacologist and parasitologist, Elizabeth Wilson: their stories — of obsessional loves and conflicting beliefs — are inextricably linked with each other and with the life and tragic death of Victorian evangelist Emily Gosse, wife of the naturalist Philip Henry Gosse. Seaside Pleasures ranges across time and geography, from Victorian Scotland to Africa in the 1960s and present-day England; the boundaries between fiction and fact become blurred, as the separate lives are woven together by the themes of shells and snails, science and religion, love and death — and the sea. What reviewers have said about Seaside Pleasures: ‘Immensely readable and extremely clever, Seaside Pleasures is a remarkable novel. Told in four distinct voices — three contemporary, one Victorian — the blend of past and present, fact and fiction, is both curious and compelling.’ Ann Thwaite, biographer of both Edmund Gosse and Philip Henry Gosse ‘A very fine piece of writing that, uniquely among modern novels, makes real use of science rather than simply wearing science on its sleeve. Tremendously good plot, story and narrative style, fascinating history and even better science. A true two-culture achievement.’ Matt Ridley, author of Genome, The Red Queen, and The Origins of Virtue. ‘Ann Lingard has written a thoughtful, compelling story...a very human account. The book is a rockpool in itself, concealing seaside secrets as well as pleasures deep beneath the surface.’ Joan Cory, North Devon Journal ‘It's rare to find science so prominent in a work of fiction.’ New Scientist ‘A clever balance...that blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction.’ Oxford Times |
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Orders Copies of Seaside Pleasures can be ordered directly through the publisher or Amazon. |
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