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The Music Room William Fiennes

The Music Room By William Fiennes

The Music Room by William Fiennes


Condition - Very Good
Out of stock

Summary

A bittersweet description of an ancient family house in an enchanted setting, and of growing up with a damaged brother.

The Music Room Summary

The Music Room: A Memoir by William Fiennes

William Fiennes spent his childhood in a moated castle, the perfect environment for a child with a brimming imagination. It is a house alive with history, beauty, and mystery, but the young boy growing up in it is equally in awe of his brother Richard. Eleven years older and a magnetic presence, Richard suffers from severe epilepsy. His illness influences the rhythms of the family and the house's internal life, and his story inspires a journey, interwoven with a loving recollection, toward an understanding of the mind.

This is a song of home, of an adored brother and the miracle of consciousness. The chill of dark historical places coexists with the warmth and chatter of the family kitchen; the surrounding landscapes are distinguished by ancient trees, secret haunts, the moat's depths and temptations. Bursting with tender detail, The Music Room is a sensuous tribute to place, memory, and the permanence of love.

The Music Room Reviews

The Music Room has an elegiac feel, not least because Mr. Fiennes writes about his family with such care and dignity. His descriptions of Richard's outbursts and seizures have the brutality of truth without any of the modern memoirist's tendency to sensationalize. We are brought deep into the castle that was a family's home, yet what we learn still has an air about it of privacy and restraint. -- Meghan Cox Gurdon - The Wall Street Journal
It is a beautiful and fortifying book, even a great one. -- Nicholas Shakespeare - Daily Telegraph (UK)
This is no misery memoir...on the contrary, it is a thoughtful and lyrical account of an extraordinary childhood. -- John Burnside - Guardian (UK)
This is a moving book, written with sensitivity. Fiennes writes with great precision and skill; his images stay with you. -- Financial Times
Fiennes has a poet's gift for creating images that are fresh and original...yet so natural as to seem almost inevitable. -- Spectator (UK)
Beautifully written...detailed without being overblown, precise without being precious. -- New Statesman (UK)
Evocative and wistful...glows with the joy of remembrance. -- Sunday Times [London]

About William Fiennes

William Fiennes's first book, The Snow Geese, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, the Hawthornden Prize, and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. He lives in England.

Additional information

CIN0393072584VG
9780393072587
0393072584
The Music Room: A Memoir by William Fiennes
Used - Very Good
Hardback
WW Norton & Co
20090914
224
Short-listed for Ondaatje Prize 2010 Short-listed for Independent Booksellers' Week Book of the Year Award: Adults' Book of the Year 2010
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - The Music Room