Lively recently won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for this deeply moving, elegantly structured novel. The heroine is Claudia Hampton, an unconventional historian and former war correspondent who lies in a hospital bed dying of cancer. Forced inward, Claudia moves randomly across time and place to reconstruct the strata of her life. But "most lives have their core, their kernel, the vital centre"; Claudia's is the brief, tragic encounter she had in Egypt during the war with Tom Southern, a British tank officer on leave from battle. Tom's voice, along with those of her brother and daughter, joins Claudia's to shape a narrative that is a complex, intricately composed fugue. This haunting evocation of loss is Lively's finest achievement yet.Laurence Hull, Cannon Memorial Lib., Concord, N.C.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

At the age of seventy-six and on her deathbed, Claudia Hampton decides to write "The history of the world as selected by Claudia: fact and fiction, myth and evidence, images and documents." It's a history seen through a kaleidoscope: "Chronology irritates me. There is no chronology inside my head. I am composed of a myriad of Claudias who spin and mix and part like sparks of sunlight on water." We meet Claudia, a woman always willing to share her opinions, who has admirers and enemies, loves and losses; fatherless Claudia, who grew up almost too close to her brother and best friend Gordon; Claudia, who could never really be a mother to her child, Lisa, or marry Jasper, Lisa's father. And Claudia certainly wouldn't tell anyone about Tom; the one love of her life; he's her own private memory, how could they understand? An independent and competitive woman, Claudia worked as a reporter in Egypt during World War II and met Tom near the front. Their brief but intense love affair affirms the power and thrill of falling in love. As people visit Claudia on her deathbed, they shake and turn the kaleidoscope, changing speed, movement, and voice, to reveal, in their own words, themselves and Claudia's impact on their world. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith