Why did I love this book?
This wondrous saga about a crew of mostly working-class English folk starts in Italy at the end of WWII, then roves for another three decades between a pub in London and a pensione in Florence. I love Winman’s ability to make us love her characters—and this book is packed with them—no matter their crimes and misdemeanors. In this novel, she rouses only compassion for Peg, who, thinking herself incapable of raising her five-year-old daughter, sends her off to Italy to be brought up by two men. Everything about Winman’s writing says love and humanity and hope. And if you’re into audiobooks, she reads the book herself; it is a brilliant performance.
7 authors picked Still Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick
A Veranda Magazine Book Club Pick
A captivating, bighearted, richly tapestried story of people brought together by love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster, by the celebrated author of Tin Man.
Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her…