The beloved and bestselling author takes an intimate look back at a life of reading and writing
βThe memory that we live with . . . is the moth-eaten version of our own past that each of us carries around, depends on. It is our ID; this is how we know who we are and where we have been.β
Memory and history have been Penelope Livelyβs terrain in fiction over a career that has spanned five decades. But she has only rarely given readers a glimpse into her influences and formative years.
Dancing Fish and Ammonites traces the arc of Livelyβs life, stretching from her early childhood in Cairo to boarding school in England to the sweeping social changes of Britainβs twentieth century. She reflects on her early love of archeology, the fragments of the ancients that have accompanied her journeyβincluding a sherd of Egyptian ceramic depicting dancing fish and ammonites found years ago on a Dorset beach. She also writes insightfully about aging and what life looks like from where she now stands.
Media Buzz
Fresh Air - NPR - March 17, 2014 All Things Considered - February 10, 2014
© 2003-2026