Making It Up - by Penelope Lively (Paperback)

About the Book

New from the award-winning author of "Moon Tiger" comes a masterly crafted exploration of the myriad answers to the question, "What if . . ."

Book Synopsis

"Nobody writes more astutely or affectingly about [love]... than Penelope Lively." -- The Washington Post

An intelligent examination of alternative destinies, choices and the moments in our lives when we could have chosen a different path, from Booker Prize-winning author Penelope Lively

In this fascinating piece of fiction, Penelope Lively takes moments from her own life and asks 'what if' she had made other choices: what if she hadn't escaped from Alexandria at the outbreak of WWII? What would her life have been like if she had become pregnant when she was 18? If she had married someone else? If she taken a different job? If she had lived her life abroad? These stories offer a sublime dance between realityand imaganation, inviting the reader to ask similar questions.

Review Quotes

"Nobody writes more astutely or affectingly about [love]... than Penelope Lively." --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

"Making It Up display[s] Lively's incisive prose style, her wit, and, above all, her agile imagination." -- Entertainment Weekly

"[A] highly original form of fictional autobiography as well as a fascinating insight into the seemingly random nature of destiny" -- Daily Mail (UK)

"[Lively's] writing has always tackled deep questions of identity, memory, love and loss . . . These elegant 'confabulations', as she calls them, allow Lively's talents full range. Intelligent, limpidly well-written and full of human understanding, they evoke the times she has seen and the richness of other lives as well as her own." -- Sunday Telegraph (UK)

About the Author

Penelope Lively grew up in Egypt but settled in England after the war and took a degree in history at St Anne's College, Oxford. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a member of PEN and the Society of Authors. She was married to the late Professor Jack Lively, has a daughter, a son and four grandchildren, and lives in Oxfordshire and London.

Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short story collections for both adults and children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her novels include Passing On, shortlisted for the 1989 Sunday Express Book of the Year Award, City of the Mind, Cleopatra's Sister and Heat Wave.

Penelope Lively has also written radio and television scripts and has acted as presenter for a BBC Radio 4 program on children's literature. She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award.