Lavinia Greenlaw's Books

The Casual Perfect

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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If Lavinia Greenlaw's Minsk was about home, her new collection tests the proximities of elsewhere, 'the circle round our house', the road between two lives. Its title recalls a phrase of Robert Lowell's to describe Elizabeth Bishop -- one of the book's presiding spirits, with her insistence on the provisional, on the moment in which perception is formed, on landscape as action rather than description. The Casual Perfect continues Lavinia Greenlaw's explorations of light and the borders of vision, which include a journey to the four corners of Britain to observe the solstices and equinoxes, and a cycle about the East Anglian landscape which is nine-tenths sky. Questions of travel hover around many of these poems, or questions which need to be 'travelled fully' rather than answered -- and which involve the overheard and the glimpsed, what is gleaned from traces and external signs. The result is a collection that is under-stated, spare but inclusive, which invites our presence as readers.

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Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571260292

ISBN 13

9780571260294

The Importance of Music to Girls

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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The Importance of Music to Girls

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

For Greenlaw, music--from bubblegum pop to classical piano to the passionate catharsis of punk rock--is at first the key to being a girl and then the means of escape. She has written a razor-sharp remembrance of adolescence, filtered through the art that strikes at the most visceral level.

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Page Count

228

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0312428375

ISBN 13

9780312428372

An Irresponsible Age

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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An Irresponsible Age

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

A powerful, involving new novel, following on from the author’s much-praised debut novel ‘Mary George of Allnorthover’.

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Page Count

262

Publisher

HarperCollins UK

Published Date

ISBN 10

0007391005

ISBN 13

9780007391004

The Vast Extent

On Seeing and Not Seeing Further

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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The Vast Extent

On Seeing and Not Seeing Further

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

[Greenlaw] wields her erudition lightly.' Sunday Times 'Remarkable, visionary.' CELIA PAUL 'Indescribably brilliant.' Daily Telegraph 'Kaleidoscopic.' Guardian 'A rare pleasure . . . rewarding and thought-provoking.' Irish Times From the celebrated poet, novelist and memoirist, The Vast Extent is a constellation of "exploded essays" about light and image, seeing and the unseen. Each is a record of how thought builds and ideas emerge, aligning art, myth, strange voyages and scientific scrutiny with a poet's response so that they cast light upon each other. In this original and illuminating work, Lavinia Greenlaw invites us to observe our world and beyond with a new sensitivity.

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Page Count

200

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

057135565X

ISBN 13

9780571355655

Mary George of Allnorthover

A Novel

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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Mary George of Allnorthover

A Novel

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

A prize-winning poet explores the secrets and strivings of a small English village in this debut novel of “precise, lyrical prose” (Publishers Weekly). Essex, England, 1970s. The day Tom Hepple returns to the village of Allnorthover, he stops at the local reservoir, beneath which lies his childhood home. Looking for a sign, he sees seventeen-year-old Mary George—who appears to be walking on water. Mary knows her life is far from miraculous, but as she contends with family and dating, navigating town festivals and raves shows, Tom becomes increasingly obsessed. Meanwhile, the small, orderly world of Allnorthover is being disrupted by power cuts, petrol shortages, and drought. The brash noise of punk rock is infiltrating the village hall, and London is getting closer all the time. As buried secrets begin to surface, Mary George is caught up in old dramas and new changes she struggles to comprehend. The T.S. Eliot Prize-winning poet Lavinia Greenlaw both recalls and subverts the traditions of nineteenth-century literature in this debut novel of family, community and the meaning of inheritance.

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Page Count

287

Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published Date

ISBN 10

0547561350

ISBN 13

9780547561356

The Importance of Music to Girls

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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The Importance of Music to Girls

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

The Importance of Music to Girls is the story of the adventures that music leads us into—how it forms and transforms us. As a soundtrack, it's there in the background while we go about the thrilling and mortifying business of growing up: raging, falling in love, wanting to change the world. Lavinia Greenlaw turns the volume up loud, and in prose of pure fury and beauty makes us remember how the music came first. For Greenlaw, music—from bubblegum pop to classical piano to the passionate catharsis of punk rock—is at first the key to being a girl and then the means of escape from all that, a way to talk to boys and a way to do without them. School reports and diary entries reveal the girl behind them searching for an identity through the sounds that compelled her generation. Crushing on Donny Osmond and his shiny teeth, disco dancing in four-inch wedge heels and sparkly eye shadow, being mesmerized by Joy Division's suicidally brilliant Ian Curtis—Greenlaw has written a razor-sharp remembrance of childhood and adolescence, filtered through the art that strikes us at the most visceral level of all.

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228

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published Date

ISBN 10

1466805838

ISBN 13

9781466805835

In the City of Love's Sleep

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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In the City of Love's Sleep

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

This is a story about a woman and a man who meet by chance. Nothing of any importance is said, yet she suddenly turns away, leaves the room, and starts to run. She is in shock from what this man has brought back to life: an electrical affinity, a higher self, a feeling of having been woken, recognized, and desired.Iris, a museum conservator in her late forties, is in the midst of separating from her husband, with whom she has two daughters. Her house is falling down, money is tight, and her husband is unwell. The man she meets is Raif, a stalled academic whose wife has died and whose girlfriend is about to move in. He is not as mysterious as he appears.Iris and Raif have no say. For all we talk about love; name its parts; explain it to each other, it is something that just happens to us. We repeat steps laden with memory. In the City of Love's Sleep reveals love in all its inscrutable complexity: the raw nature of feeling and its uncontrollable, inconsistent, unsettling truths.

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Page Count

288

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571337643

ISBN 13

9780571337644

Questions of Travel

William Morris in Iceland

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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Questions of Travel

William Morris in Iceland

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

Poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw's poetic reflections on William Morris's Icelandic Journal, one of the overlooked masterpieces of travel literature The great Victorian designer and decorative artist William Morris was fascinated by Iceland and wrote a book documenting his travels there. He gets caught up with questions of travel, noting his reaction to the idea of leaving or arriving, to hurry and delay, what it means to dread a place you’ve never been to or to encounter the actuality of a long-held vision. He is sensitive to the emotional landscape of his band of travelers and, above all, continuously analyzing and fixing this “most romantic of all deserts.” Lavinia Greenlaw follows in his footsteps, and interposes his prose with her own “questions of travel.” The result is a new and composite work that brilliantly explores our conflicted reasons for not staying at home.

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Page Count

225

Publisher

New York Review of Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1907903186

ISBN 13

9781907903182

A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

An original poetic work that brings alive Chaucer’s great love story, illuminating the psychological drama at its heart. The captivating love story of ill-fated Troilus and Criseyde, first popularized by Chaucer’s poem in the 1380s, is one of the most enduring stories of the English language. In A Double Sorrow, award-winning poet Lavinia Greenlaw breathes fresh life into the medieval tale through a series of seven-line stanzas, which mimic the form of Chaucer’s original poem. Set during the siege of Troy, A Double Sorrow is the story of the Trojan hero Troilus and his beloved Criseyde, whose traitorous father defects to the Greeks and persuades them to ask for his daughter in an exchange of prisoners. Troilus suggests that Criseyde flee with him, but she knows she will be universally condemned and instead pretends to submit to the exchange while promising Troilus that she will find a way to return to him within ten days. But once in the company of the Greeks, she soon realizes the impossibility of her promise to Troilus and in despair succumbs to another. In this series of skillfully crafted poetic vignettes, Greenlaw illuminates each small but irrevocable step as these characters argue each other and themselves into and out of love. The result is a breathtaking and shattering read, contemporary and timeless.

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Page Count

219

Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

Published Date

ISBN 10

0393247333

ISBN 13

9780393247336

Minsk

Poems

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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Minsk

Poems

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

Table of contents

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Page Count

108

Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published Date

ISBN 10

0151010927

ISBN 13

9780151010929

Mary George of Allnorthover

A Novel

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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Mary George of Allnorthover

A Novel

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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287

Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published Date

ISBN 10

0547561350

ISBN 13

9780547561356

Thoughts of a Night Sea

By: Garry Fabian Miller,Lavinia Greenlaw

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Thoughts of a Night Sea

By: Garry Fabian Miller,Lavinia Greenlaw

Thoughts of a Night Sea presents Garry Fabian Miller's most recent series of photographic works, although the term photography describes them only in the broadest sense. Since 1985 Garry Fabian Miller has worked without camera or film, using the first principles of photography to explore the alchemical action of light and chemicals on paper. His artistic language - like that of other cameraless photographers such as Adam Fuss and Susan Derges - is essentially abstract and his raw material is light itself. His methods look back to those of the early pioneers of photography in the 1830s and 1840s, but in his return to the basics - the fundamentals of form and colour - Garry Fabian Miller continues to move his medium forward and has a deserved reputation as one of the most progressive artists working with photography today." "This powerful and poetic group of pictures has prompted the writer Lavinia Greenlaw's meditations on Fabian Miller's imaginary world, and their collaboration on this publication has given rise to a book that is equally a celebration of Fabian Miller's work and an artwork in itself."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Publisher

Merrell Pub Limited

Published Date

ISBN 10

1858942225

ISBN 13

9781858942223

Questions of Travel

William Morris in Iceland

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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Questions of Travel

William Morris in Iceland

By: Lavinia Greenlaw

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Page Count

225

Publisher

New York Review of Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1910749346

ISBN 13

9781910749340

The Bridport Prize

Poetry and Short Stories

By: Jane Gardam,Lavinia Greenlaw

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The Bridport Prize

Poetry and Short Stories

By: Jane Gardam,Lavinia Greenlaw

This anthology comprises the winning entries in the 2006 Bridport Literary Competition.

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Page Count

160

Publisher

Sansom Company Limited

Published Date

ISBN 10

1904537685

ISBN 13

9781904537687

Book's by Lavinia Greenlaw

The Casual Perfect

The Casual Perfect

The Importance of Music to Girls

The Importance of Music to Girls

An Irresponsible Age

An Irresponsible Age

The Vast Extent

The Vast Extent

Mary George of Allnorthover

Mary George of Allnorthover

The Importance of Music to Girls

The Importance of Music to Girls

In the City of Love's Sleep

In the City of Love's Sleep

Questions of Travel

Questions of Travel

A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde

A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde

Minsk

Minsk

Mary George of Allnorthover

Mary George of Allnorthover

Thoughts of a Night Sea

Thoughts of a Night Sea

Questions of Travel

Questions of Travel

The Bridport Prize

The Bridport Prize

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