Still Life: The instant Sunday Times bestseller and BBC Between the Covers Book Club pick

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Art versus humanity is not the question. One doesn’t exist without the other. Art is the antidote.”

Evelyn was the carrier of the real message in the plot: She represented women: Single women, gay women, were sophisticated, the noble stars. Married women were all beyond par - abused, lost. Religious women were martyrs in a world created for men, by men.

Cress thought Evelyn had something of the poets about her, but didn’t everyone that year, Cress? Loss and love. The only ingredients required.” It is hard to envision a reader who won't be smitten by Winman's characters and their banter." - Booklist (starred review) Peggy Temper — an abused women with multiple talents. But also the woman with the golden voice and the swaying hips.

I was easily transported to an earlier time (the end of WWII- with these collective characters — and their fresh-enjoyable (often playful), dialogue with each other. One hundred and fifty years ago Napoleon breathed the same air as we do now. The battalion of time marches on. Art versus humanity is not the question, Ulysses. One doesn’t exist without the other. Art is the antidote. Is that enough to make it important? Well, yes, I think it is”. However, I appreciated the vast array of personalities and the immense effort of the author to make this an informative experience. It just felt everything was overstaying the welcome, sort of. And too familiar. A lot of word dumping. Too much for me.

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So, this book is sentimental and melodramatic and quite over the top, and really far too long. But I found myself slowing down, fearful for the fate of these glorious characters, and what might happen to them when I reached the inevitable ‘end’ (of the book, and their lives. Being a melodrama, Winman wrings every ounce of emotion and nostalgia out of her decades-long saga.)

Ulysses' good deed, performed when in Italy during the war, sees him as the owner of a beautiful apartment in Florence. So, together with Peg's daughter Alys, Cress, and Claude the parrot, they make their way to their new life. A new location, a new business, a new language, new friends, - a life filled with light, love, good food, and the simple joys of life - the three ex-pats and their bird flourish. Chronic illness is a terrible narrator,” she says, apologetic that she can’t end the book with a moment of redemption. The new name doctors give to her unwellness, “dysautonomia”, is no more helpful than the old ones. Undaunted, she confesses to being “embarrassed at how much I am enjoying my life, especially when the world insists on telling me that I really shouldn’t”. An invisible illness, they call it. But she tells us what it looks and feels like. And makes herself visible in the process.It’s 1944 and in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as the Allied troops advance and bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening together.

For those who may be put off by the surreal touches, I would just say, if you let those keep you from reading this, you would be missing out on so much. This is a beautiful story that spans decades in the lives of characters that not only connect beautifully with each other, but to this reader. There is war at the beginning and the flooding of Florence in 1966, and through the years there is heartbreak and grief and loss, but there is Italy and art and music and food, friendship and love and joy . Not much more to say, other than that I loved everything about this book and I didn’t want it to end. This is a wonderful character driven story of kindred spirits which takes us on an emotional journey from Florence to the East End of London. In 1944 Evelyn Skinner and Margaret Somebody or other meet Private Ulysses Temper of the 8th Army in the Tuscan Hills. Evelyn and Ulysses form a connection and a bond that will remain for many years. Meanwhile in London, Uly’s wife Peg is enduring the war years as best she can with some ‘comforting’ from Eddie an American soldier. Post war the action alternates between the two areas - in London it centres on The Stoat and Parot with landlord Col and wonderful customers like Cress and Pete. Stretching from 1944 to 1979, this story traces the charming relationships among a group of friends who are close enough to have formed a devoted and supportive family. The central character is Ulysses Temper, a young British soldier who we first meet in Florence, Italy during WWII. Ulysses, his Captain and 64 year old art historian (and possible spy) Evelyn Skinner spend a memorable evening looking at art, drinking wine and escaping bombs. “When the bombs fell overhead, and he held my hand and shouted against the tumult, not today, Evelyn! It’s not going to be us today. His face was compelling, Dotty. I was young again. I felt young again. I will be forever grateful.” The link between Ulysses and Evelyn lasts for decades. By the bestselling, prize-winning author of When God was a Rabbit and Tin Man, Still Life is a beautiful, big-hearted, richly tapestried story of people brought together by love, war, art, flood… and the ghost of E.M. Forster. Moving from the Tuscan Hills, to the smog of the East End and the piazzas of Florence, Still Life is a sweeping, mischievous, richly-peopled novel about beauty, love, family and fate.

I’m sorry, but it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me! And it’s just a bit too… I don’t know – preachy? Like the author is saying, if you don’t get the lesson, here it is summarized for you. Too much telling and not enough showing for this reader, I guess. I’m afraid I prefer to draw my own conclusions about any lessons to be learned. Come to think of it, I didn’t draw any of my own conclusions, as all the work was done for me by Sarah Winman. Still Life was a truly beautiful book by Sarah Winman with an endearing and quirky ensemble of characters that I came to treasure and love over the course of this book as it begins in 1944 and skips through time in periods of years concluding in 1979 immersing one in Italy, particularly beautiful Florence - Firenze! Amore mio! This is a beautiful story creating a rich tapestry of people all brought together by art and love and war and a flood showing us all of the myriad forms that can make up a family. This was a lovely book and will definitely be one of my favorites for this year. Beautiful art opens our eyes to the beauty of the world, Ulysses. It repositions our sight and judgement. Captures forever that which is fleeting. A meager stain in the corridors of history, that's all we are. A little mark of scuff. One hundred and fifty years ago Napoleon breathed the same air as we do now. The batallion of time marches on. Art versus humanity is not the question, Ulysses. One doesn't exist without the other. Art is the antidote. Is that enough to make it important? Well yes, I think it is." The exciting male characters were mostly single, or gay, or brute vox populi of the deplorables, and ugh, the epitome of red-meat masculinity. By the grace of all the planets, one of them became an anti-hero and, at last, most lovable. Well, he stopped eating meat, now you've got to love him.