Kartography

Sample

Anita Brookner

I have come to believe that there can be no adequate preparation for the sadness that comes at the end, the sheer regret that one's life is finished, that one's failures remain indelible and one's successes illusory.' Elizabeth and Betsy are old school friends. Born in 1948 and unready for the sixties, they had high hopes of the lives they would lead, even though their circumstances were so different. When they meet again in their thirties, Elizabeth, married to the safe, older Digby is relieving the boredom of a cosy but childless marriage with an affair. Betsy seems to have found real romance in Paris. Are their lives taking off, or are they just making more of the wrong choices without even realising it?

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Charles Dickens

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final, uncompleted novel by Charles Dickens. John Jasper is a choirmaster who is in love with one of his pupils, Rosa Bud. She is the fiancee of his nephew, Edwin Drood. A hot-tempered man from Ceylon also becomes interested in her and he and Drood take an instant dislike to one another. Later, Drood disappears, and as Dickens never finished the novel, Drood's fate remains a mystery indeed.

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Anita Brookner

Chronicles the relationship between two women--Julia, the glamorous, manipulative ex-cabaret star, and the timid, modest Faye--whose husbands are business associates, in a study of the fragility and resilience of friendship.

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Louisa May Alcott

Polly visits her wealthy friend Fanny Shaw in the city and is overwhelmed by the fashionable and urban life they live--but also left out because of her "countrified" manners and outdated clothes.