BOOKS
A story of hidden grief and desire
It’s 2014 and retired professor Daniel Sale, 77, is the wealthy scion of a New England family. He is mourning the death and harbouring the guilt of being responsible for the murder of his lover, 50 years before. He is introduced to New York lawyer Chester Bowery and his two young daughters. As they start to become friends, something unexpected from Daniel’s past confronts him with the bitter truth that everything in his life up until that moment, may have been a lie.
He confesses to his friend the brutal end to a love story half a century before. And together with Chester he takes a journey back to 1961 to relive his experiences in Barcelona, a city recovering from war, where he became involved in a world of Catalan intrigue, poverty, resistance and love, a world far different from his New England upbringing and his socialite mother Mae Farwell.
This is the tale of an old man lost in the world, who suddenly learns that life can begin at any time and that true love is never to be found where you expect it. It is both an elegy for a lifetime of grief and a celebration of the importance of being true to ourselves.
“An engrossing novel, with a quiet wisdom that gently pulls you into
the hearts, the worlds and the experiences of the characters.
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.” Michael Cashman
“...it unerringly evokes entire worlds and periods, through which the
characters, wrestling with their own complexities, move towards love...a many-layered and irresistibly sympathetic account of real human lives lived out in the dark shadow of one of the 20th century’s most repressive regimes.” Simon Callow
A self-help manual for the kitchen
illustrations by
Robert Littleford
Cooking without Recipes liberates you from the tyranny of someone else’s culinary imagination. Do your own thing, it says, listen to the food, listen to your stomach and your palate, let cooking become second nature. It is the book all of our grandmothers would have written. Read, inwardly digest, then throw the book away. This is the first day of the rest of your life in the kitchen.
Do you envy people who seem to be able to cook with effortless ease. Have you ever wanted to cook like your mother, bringing an endless variety of meals to the table without ever looking at a recipe book? Do you want to be inspired in the kitchen again, and just by opening the fridge door concoct a feast from nothing but a few leftovers, a squeeze of lemon and some fresh air? Then look no further. Cooking without Recipes will show you how. By using the right implements, shopping with confidence, stocking up on essential ingredients, you’ll acquire the instinct to prepare your favourite dishes from your own creativity and imagination.
