Penelope Lively : is anyone else a fan of her novels and short stories?

[FolioQuarto]

I am currently reading my third Lively book since the beginning of the year. All rereads, I find them easy to read but not at all lightweight. I love how she explores perceptions of time, and the links between history and now.

I'll read something else next, probably something I haven't read before, then read a few more Lively novels.

Charlotte Sometimes was by Penelope Farmer. I hadn’t realised it was actually a sequel and there are two earlier books featuring Charlotte and her sister Emma in which other supernatural things happen to them.

Moon Tiger
The Photograph
Family Album
Heatwave
The Road to Lichfield
Passing On
Spiderweb
Judgement Day
Perfect Happiness

A Stitch in Time
Norham Gardens
Astercote

This is my Penelope list. I enjoyed all of these and found them to be both comforting and insightful in their own ways. Such a good writer.

Thanks @SydneyCarton . I got them muddled up! I didn't know Charlotte Sometimes was part of a sequence of books.

Santasbigredbobblehat That's a great list. I would also recommend City of the Mind, According to Mark and How It All Began.

If you are interested in her short stories The Purple Swamp Hen is my favourite collection.

Definitely Folio, going to have a look on eBay now!

I also love A Traveller in Time!

What a lovely thread, this has prompted me to get my Penelope Lively off the shelves....
As a child, I loved Astercote and Thomas Kempe. Later I began reading her novels and then also found a couple of autobiographies - Oleander, Jacaranda and later Ammonites and Leaping Fish. (I would have been attracted to them for the titles alone...)

I've been rereading them. I love Moontiger and her children's books, but am starting to find a lot of her other work rather snide. A lot of them are about class, but they rely on 90s class makers which feel lazy and she comes across as rather a snob. They're not as clever and insightful as I used to find them.

I met Penelope Lively at a book festival a few years ago. I had a first edition of A Stitch in Time which she signed a bit automatically but when I produced my really battered childhood copy with loose pages and a couple of drawings inside she really lit up and said "oh you must let me sign that". I managed to stutter out that The House in Norham Gardens was the reason I took a couple of anthropology modules at university and The Ghost of Thomas Kempe made me really understand archaeology was about people and she was very pleased. I still glow a bit remembering!

i have just finished moon tiger which I loved. Thank you for the lists! More to read😜

I'm a big fan and have read a lot of her books. My favourite is Moon Tiger but I also particularly loved Cleopatra's Sister and City of the Mind.
I think my favourite non fiction of hers is A House Unlocked which is superb and I've re-read it several times over the years.

Philandbill I haven't read A House Unlocked yet but I picked up a copy in a charity shop recently. It's in my to be read soon pile.

Parts of it are quite moving, especially the bits about the evacuees and the kindertransport.

I was googling to see if Penelope Lively books are better read in order and this thread came up. Hello!

I'm currently reading Family Album, my first PL book, and am loving it. It was probably on the 99p or thereabouts list on Kindle. Sometimes I strike very lucky with that mean streak, sometimes not so much. I will definitely be looking out for Moon Tiger, and anything else she's written. I love finding a new to me author with a few books to their name.

Happy times 😊

Love love love Penelope Lively. Comfort reads for me.

This time of year (and weather) is perfect to enjoy Heat Wave. Also love Road to Lichfield, Moon Tiger, many of the short stories.

Also confused Charlotte Sometimes with her - in fact I think that's how I first read one of her novels. Reread Charlotte Sometimes to my daughters during covid and it really stands the test of time.

I've just done a reread of this.

She reminds me a little of Jan Mark, minus the very dry humour

I am reading Heatwave right now. I've loved her writing since studying Moon Tiger for A level.

No one has mentioned her autobiography of her childhood (in Egypt and elsewhere) Oleander, Jacaranda, which is excellent.

I have loved her writing since reading A House in Norham Gardens as a child, and Moon Tiger after that, but I am still working my way through the more obscure of her novels for adults, depending on when I find them in second-hand bookshops.

I love Jan Mark too, ever since primary school book club catalogue served me up Hairs In The Palm of the Hand, which was a double volume of two excellent tales.

I have The One That Got Away which is a collection of her stories post-humously published (I think) by her colleagues at Oxford Brookes University? So many crackers.

@MsInterpret , you probably know this ajar but there's a fab audio book of HITPOTH on audible read by Tony Robinson.

He does it perfectly!

Not aware - thanks for the tip! Can imagine it'd be perfect.

I used to enjoy teaching The Darkness Out There to GCSE students. Always well received and thought-provoking.