Paperback
Still Life
By Sarah Winman
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
Over 500,000 copies sold internationally
A BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick
A BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime
Winner of Dymocks Book of the Year
‘Sheer joy’ GRAHAM NORTON
‘Utterly beautiful … filled with hope’ JOANNA CANNON
‘A gorgeous, generous story of kind hearts and kindred spirits’ DAILY MIRROR
From the author of When God was a Rabbit and Tin Man, Still Life is a big-hearted story of the families we forge and the friendships that make us.
1944, Italy. As bombs fall around them, two strangers meet in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa and share an extraordinary evening.
Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner a 64-year-old art historian living life on her own terms. She has come to salvage paintings from the wreckage of war and relive memories of her youth when her heart was stolen by an Italian maid in a particular room with a view. Ulysses’ chance encounter with Evelyn will transform his life – and all those who love him back home in London – forever.
Uplifting, sweeping and full of unforgettable characters, Still Life is a novel about beauty, love, family and friendship.
‘THE most beautiful book … it will stay with me a long time’ SARA COX, BBC TWO’S BETWEEN THE COVERS
‘Extraordinary . . . my book of the year’ LIZ NUGENT
‘Moving, wise, poetic and funny’ DAILY MAIL
‘Winman’s pages teem with boisterous, exuberant life’ SUNDAY TIMES
”'The sheer joy in Sarah Winman’s storytelling is completely infectious. I’ve loved spending time with this unforgettable cast of characters in extraordinary times and places” - Graham Norton
”'Winman’s pages teem with boisterous, exuberant life … The novel has verve, charm and tremendous heart” - Sunday Times
”'Exquisite … There are not enough superlatives to contain the magnitude and beauty of this novel” - Sunday Independent
”'Sentence after sentence, character by character, Still Life becomes poetry” - New York Times Book Review
”'A tonic for wanderlust and a cure for loneliness. It’s that rare, affectionate novel that makes one feel grateful to have been carried along” - The Washington Post
”'Teeming with unforgettable characters and oozing atmosphere, it’s a joyous, summery ode to love, art and poetry” - Hephzibah Anderson, Mail on Sunday
”'Rich, deeply moving and filled with hope. Sarah Winman is one of the greatest storytellers of our time” - Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep
”'A gorgeous, generous story of kind hearts and kindred spirits … [A] hopeful, happy, intensely humane novel” - Daily Mirror
”'Readers will want to prolong the pleasure of Sarah Winman’s beautiful novel Still Life for as long as possible” - Donal Ryan, author of From a Low and Quiet Sea
”'Embodies the full generosity of the human spirit” - Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
”'Gorgeous … luscious and clever” - The Times
”'In Still Life, [Winman] emerges now as the great narrator of hope” - Helen Cullen, Irish Times