This is an unabridged audiobook title.

Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction 2010.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2009.

An engrossing family saga set in the era of the late 19th century and up to the end of World War One. A simpler time, soon to change politically and socially, is shown to us through three families and the way the parents of each raise their children.

Synopsis

AUDIO SYNOPSIS
31h 30m (approx.) on 28 CD(s)
Narrated by Nicolette McKenzie

Olive Wellwood is a famous writer, interviewed with her children at her side. For each of them she writes a separate private book. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, those of their rich cousins and of their friends are already inscribed with mystery...

Reviews

The stories within stories of these two intertwined aesthete families between 1895 and 1919 are like an Edwardian Christmas pudding, fatly stuffed with fruits and flavours. Listening is best limited to 30 minutes a day so that the period detail and the didactic setpieces may be savoured.” Observer

“...The Children's Book... reassures us there will be more worlds, more unique social juxtapositions and more potted educations from Byatt.” The Independent

“Intellectual zest keeps the book sizzling with ideas... this is the most stirring novel Byatt has written since Possession.” The Sunday Times

About the Author

A. S. Byatt is internationally acclaimed as a novelist, short story writer and critic. Educated at York and Newnham College, Cambridge, she taught at the Central School of Art and Design, and was Senior lecturer in English at University College, London, before becoming a full-time writer in 1983. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999. Her most recent novel is A Whistling Woman, the conclusion of the famous 'Frederica' quartet. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation