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The Coward's Tale: A Novel (2012)

by Vanessa Gebbie(Favorite Author)

4.1 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1608197727 (ISBN13: 9781608197729)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Bloomsbury USA

review 1: To read this extraordinary book is to pause and see life afresh as if through a prism, to tiptoe around a Welsh village and peep through the keyholes, to watch from upstairs windows as detail unfolds on the streets below us, to stare at minutiae through a microscope, and to see in close-up the tiny cogs which make the world go round. Reading this book makes the familiar uncomfortable and the uncomfortable familiar. It makes you look at yourself differently and see your place in great garden of life. It provokes you into reassessing the smallest of passing acquaintanceships. It teaches you not to underestimate the intense and personal gifts which may be given in the telling of stories. Congratulations Vanessa, I'm glad to have found your extraordinarily 'piquant' writing (I... more cannot find an equivalent English word to describe your unique style!) and I hope to read many more books as the years go by.
review 2: When you're a voracious reader like me who has been swallowing books for at least 54 years, you don't frequently get knocked off your comfort perch by something new. This novel is "something new." I thought the title was a spin on Chaucer (and perhaps it was), but I quickly got completely immersed in the nartrative and found myself starting to take sides for and against characters. And they're not real! Well, who is to say that invented characters aren't real, what are we all anyway ..... anyone want to engage in that philosophical discussion to while away a few hours? Anyway, I'd highly recommend this novel as "a thought that sticks with you" long after the last page has been turned. less

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