Matthew Kneale - Free Library Land Online - Contemporary

When We Were Romans

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:56:41 +0200

Nine-year-old Lawrence is the man in his family. He watches protectively over his mother and his wilful little sister Jemima. He is the one who keeps things in order, especially when, quite suddenly, his mother decides the three of them must leave their life in England behind.

Their destination is Rome, where she lived when she was young, and as they drive through the night in a car filled to bursting, the excitement takes them back to those happier days. For Lawrence, fascinated by stories of popes and emperors, Rome is an adventure. Though short of money, and passed from one to another of his mother's old friends, it seems that little by little their new life is beginning to take shape. But the mystery that brought them to Italy will not quite leave them in peace.

"When We Were Romans" is a haunting psychological novel, another masterful work from the author of the prize-winning "English Passengers" . Powerfully evoking the feelings of childhood—the triumphs, the jealousies, the fears, the possessions, the love—it is most of all the story of Lawrence, of how, with a wisdom well in advance of his years, he strives to keep his family together, as everything he understands is turned upside down.

Pilgrims

Fri, 04 Sep 2020 17:12:17 +0300

The year 1289. A rich farmer fears he'll go to hell for cheating his neighbours. His wife wants pilgrim badges to sew into her hat and show off at church. A poor, ragged villager is convinced his beloved cat is suffering in the fires of purgatory and must be rescued. A mother is convinced her son's dangerous illness is punishment for her own adultery and seeks forgiveness so he may be cured. A landlord is in trouble with the church after he punched an abbot on the nose. A sexually driven noblewoman seeks a divorce so she can marry her new young beau.
These are among a group of pilgrims that sets off on the tough and dangerous journey from England to Rome, where they hope all their troubles will be answered. Some in the party who have their own, secret reasons for going.
Matthew Kneale is the author of English Passengers and Rome: A History in Seven Sackings. His new novel, Pilgrims is a riveting, sweeping narrative that shows medieval society in a new...

English passengers

Thu, 23 Nov 2000 21:17:23 +0200

English Passengers (2000) A novel by Matthew Kneale Awards: Whitbread Prize The Booker Prize (nominee) This novel tells two parallel stories: one of three eccentric Englishmen who set sail for Tasmania to find the garden of Eden; the other of a young Tasmanian aborigine and his tribe, struggling against the invading British, who prove as lethal in their good intentions as in their cruelty. "English Passengers is an old-fashioned book in the best sense: epic in scale, crammed with outsize characters, set in a long-ago time and a faraway place... 'A-'"—Entertainment Weekly "Robust and rollicking...unforgettable...It's tough to pull off a memorable epic, but Kneale has done it. So get comfortable, and be prepared to enter a fascinating world."—New York Post When Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of rum smugglers from the Isle of Man have most of their contraband—but not all—confiscated by British Customs, they are forced to put their ship Sincerity up for charter. The only takers are two eccentric Englishmen who want to embark for the other side of the globe.The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson believes the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania. His traveling partner, Dr. Thomas Potter, unbeknownst to Wilson, is developing a revolutionary, and sinister, thesis of his own, about the races of men. And these passengers are perhaps only slightly more odd than the crew itself, a diverse and lively bunch better equipped to entertain one another than to steer Sincerity around Cape Horn and across the Indian Ocean. Yet they set sail, pointed southward and bound for a thrilling, epic romp across the high seas and cultures of the nineteenth century.Meanwhile, an aboriginal in Tasmania named Peevay recounts his people's struggles against the invading British, who prove as lethal in their good intentions as in their cruelty. This is no Eden but a world of hunting parties and colonial ethnic cleansing. As the English passengers haplessly approach Peevay's land, their bizarre notions ever more painfully at odds with reality, we know a mighty collision is looming.Full of dangerous humor, English Passengers combines wit, adventure, and harrowing historical detail in a mesmerizing display of storytelling. Narrated by over twenty different characters, each one so distinct that the reader has the sense of a story not so much told as dazzlingly peopled, Matthew Kneale has created a buoyant tale, beautifully presented in a storm of voices that brings a past age to vivid and memorable life.

Rome

Fri, 24 Nov 1995 06:31:15 +0200

"Kneale's account is a masterpiece of pacing and suspense. Characters from the city's history spring to life in his hands." —The Sunday Times (London)

Novelist and historian Matthew Kneale, a longtime resident of Rome, tells the story of the Eternal City—from the early Roman Republic through the Renaissance and the Reformation to Mussolini and the German occupation in World War Two—through pivotal moments that defined its history.
Rome, the Eternal City. It is a hugely popular tourist destination with a rich history, famed for such sites as the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon, St. Peter's, and the Vatican. In no other city is history as present as it is in Rome. Today visitors can stand on bridges that Julius Caesar and Cicero crossed; walk around temples in the footsteps of emperors; visit churches from the earliest days of Christianity.

This is all the more remarkable considering what the city has endured over the centuries. It has...

Sweet Thames

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:18:30 +0200

In the summer of 1849 cholera threatens the city and the people of London. The authorities send millions of gallons of sewage cascading into the Thames, for many Londoners the only source of drinking water. Joshua Jeavons, a young and idealistic engineer, embarks on an obsessive quest to find the cause of the epidemic. As he labours in a fog of incomprehension, his domestic life is troubled by the baffling coldness of his beautiful bride, Isabella. But when she suddenly disappears his desperate search for her takes him to a netherworld of slum-dwellers, pickpockets and scavengers of subterranean London.