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Penelope Lively is an author with a shelf full of awards. For her book, A Stitch in Time, she scooped the Whitbread award; The Ghost of Thomas Kempe earned her the Carnegie Medal in 1973 and she has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize several times for her adult novels. Penelope has written a number of Yellow Banana books for Egmont including Dragon Trouble and Debbie and the Little Devil.
Penelope regularly reviews books and writes articles for the national papers. She has also written radio and TV scripts; and acted as presenter for a Radio 4 programme on children's literature.
Penelope Lively was born in Cairo, Egypt and spent her childhood there. She came to England at the age of twelve, in 1945, and after boarding school she studied Modern History at Oxford University.
In 1957 Penelope married Jack Lively (who died in 1998) and they had two children, Josephine and Adam. Penelope now lives in London close to her four grandchildren. With her great sense of humour, Penelope describes herself as a working nanny!
Julia Eccleshare's Pick of the Month June 2016 Award-winning Penelope Lively’s classic story humorously captures the dreamy and imaginary world of eleven year old Maria. An only child, Maria is used to quietly observing the world around her. When her parents rent a house by the sea full of the objects and curios of previous occupants, Maria finds herself drawn into the life of Harriet, a child who lived there previously. Imaginative Maria, who can converse with the grumpy and opinionated cat, weaves a story around Maria but is it what really happened? Penelope Lively elegantly explores how the lives of children are effected by lives in the past. ~ Julia Eccleshare Julia Eccleshare's Picks of the Month for June 2016 The World's Worst Children by David Walliams Seacrow Island by Astrid Lindgren The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively Street Child by Berlie Doherty Fenn Halflin and the Fearzero by Francesca Armour-Chelu The Bubble Boy by Stewart Foster
Winner of the 1973 CILIP Carnegie Medal The Ghost of Thomas Kempe is a timeless and haunting story, critically acclaimed, this Carnegie award winning novel also made it into The Independent’s ‘Top Ten Ghost Stories of all time’. Penelope Lively is the only author to have won both the Booker Prize and the Carnegie Medal, the two most prestigious awards, one for an adult book and the other for a children’s book. It was this novel, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, that won the Carnegie Medal. It is a story that will keep the reader gripped to the page as it builds to an incredibly exciting climax as Thomas Kempe the ghost seems intent on getting James into awful trouble with his family and yet whatever James does his family won't believe in ghosts!
Julia Eccleshare's Pick of the Month June 2016 Award-winning Penelope Lively’s classic story humorously captures the dreamy and imaginary world of eleven year old Maria. An only child, Maria is used to quietly observing the world around her. When her parents rent a house by the sea full of the objects and curios of previous occupants, Maria finds herself drawn into the life of Harriet, a child who lived there previously. Imaginative Maria, who can converse with the grumpy and opinionated cat, weaves a story around Maria but is it what really happened? Penelope Lively elegantly explores how the lives of children are effected by lives in the past. ~ Julia Eccleshare Julia Eccleshare's Picks of the Month for June 2016 The World's Worst Children by David Walliams Seacrow Island by Astrid Lindgren The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively Street Child by Berlie Doherty Fenn Halflin and the Fearzero by Francesca Armour-Chelu The Bubble Boy by Stewart Foster
Penelope Lively is the only author to have won both the Booker Prize and the Carnegie Medal, the two most prestigious awards, one for an adult book and the other for a children’s book. It was this novel, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, that won the Carnegie Medal and if you read it you’ll know why. This is a story that will keep the reader gripped to the page as it builds to an incredibly exciting climax as Thomas Kempe the ghost seems intent on getting James into awful trouble with his family.
Since being wiped out in the 14th century by the Black Death, the village of Astercote has been overgrown by forest, but its past still haunts the local Cotswold folk. Soon, villagers fall ill, crosses are marked on the doors and the modern village is taken over by a medieval consciousness. Astercote village is dead, its ruins lie hidden in the murky wood. Mair and her brother, Peter, come upon the deserted village by accident and there meet a youth who tells how the village was destroyed by the Black Death. They also learn of a long-guarded secret, and they are caught up in a superstitious fear as strange events unfold.
'DO NOT OPEN - DESTROY.' The words on the envelope he has found are written in Kath's hand, but Glyn ignores his wife's instruction and breaks the seal. His life unwinds. For he finds a photograph showing Kath holding hands with another man. Unable to forget this long-ago act of betrayal he recklessly excavates the past, seeking out who knew what, tearing apart other lives as he tries to dig up the roots of his wife's infidelity. But what is the truth about Kath? What is the truth about their love? And can it survive this? 'Remarkable' Sunday Telegraph
From the Booker Prize winner and national bestselling author, reflections on gardening, art, literature, and lifePenelope Lively takes up her key themes of time and memory, and her lifelong passions for art, literature, and gardening in this philosophical and poetic memoir. From the courtyards of her childhood home in Cairo to a family cottage in Somerset, to her own gardens in Oxford and London, Lively conducts an expert tour, taking us from Eden to Sissinghurst and into her own backyard, traversing the lives of writers like Virginia Woolf and Philip Larkin while imparting her own sly and spare wisdom. "e;Her body of work proves that certain themes never go out of fashion,"e; writes the New York Times Book Review, as true of this beautiful volume as of the rest of the Lively canon.Now in her eighty-fourth year, Lively muses, "e;To garden is to elide past, present, and future; it is a defiance of time."e;
'Rich and unusual, a book to treasure. Few recent gardening books come anywhere close to its style, intelligence and depth. Moves between Lively's own horticultural life and a broad history of gardening' Observer 'Wonderful. A manifesto of horticultural delight' Literary Review 'Beautiful. Perfect for literary garden lovers' Good Housekeeping 'Exquisite and original' Daily Telegraph 'Enchanting. Reading this book is like walking with a wise, humorous guide through a series of garden rooms . . . and finding that vistas suddenly open out, on to history, fashion, politics, reflections on time and the taming of nature' Tablet 'A perfect bedside book. In part it's a memoir of the gardens in Lively's life, starting with the exotic Egyptian garden of her childhood and continuing up to her small present-day garden in a north London square' Sunday Express 'A gentle survey of the garden's place in Western culture, which morphs into a personal meditation on time, memory and a life well lived' i 'Scholarly bedtime reading' The Times, Books of the Year
Penelope Lively is the only author to have won both the Booker Prize and the Carnegie Medal, the two most prestigious awards, one for an adult book and the other for a children’s book. It was this novel, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, that won the Carnegie Medal and if you read it you’ll know why. This is a story that will keep the reader gripped to the page as it builds to an incredibly exciting climax as Thomas Kempe the ghost seems intent on getting James into awful trouble with his family.
The Road to Lichfield is the Booker Prize shortlisted first novel by Penelope Lively, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time on the 40th anniversary of its publication. Ann Linton leaves her family in Berkshire and sets up camp in her father's house when he is taken into a nursing home in distant Lichfield. As she shares his last weeks she meets David Fielding, and the love they share brings her feelings into sharp focus. Deeply felt, beautifully controlled, The Road to Lichfield is a subtle exploration of memory and identity, of chance and consequence, of the intricate weave of generations across a past never fully known, and a future never fully anticipated. 'A searing study of the peculiar state of being in love . . . there are few contemporary novelists to match her on this subject' Sunday Telegraph
'Lively remains a sublime storyteller' Guardian on How It All Began 'More stylish than many writers half her age . . . Lively knows a thing of two about storytelling.' The Times on How It All Began A dream house that is hiding something sinister; two women having lunch who share a husband; an old woman doing her weekly supermarket shop with a secret past that no one could guess; a couple who don't know each other at all even after fifteen years together; and, in the story from which this collection takes its name, a bird and a servant girl in ancient Pompeii who cannot converse, but share a perfect understanding. In this new and varied collection of short stories, Penelope Lively shows that she remains a master of her craft, and one of our finest English writers.
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