{"product_id":"held","title":"Held - Shortlisted for the Book Prize 2024","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThrough luminous moments of chance, change, and even grace, Michaels shows us our humanity\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMargaret Atwood\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eSam from Max Minerva's thoughts:\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNovels are often called poetic but few I've read cross the boundary into poetry as easily as \u003cem\u003eHeld \u003c\/em\u003edoes. Sometimes written in stanzas, sometimes in individual lines, and sometimes in more conventional chapters, the form flows beautifully to convey the moments being described. And \u003cem\u003eHeld \u003c\/em\u003eis more a collection of consequential moments than a linear story of one family's lives across a century. Michaels' writing is so beautiful, so hauntingly meditative though, that I was more than willingly to be swept along, occasionally disorientated, by her contemplations on what it means to love and what it means to lose those that you do love.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e-----------\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024, the triumphant new novel from the author of the Orange Prize-winning Fugitive Pieces: a soaring and luminous story of chance and change.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory – a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast – as the snow falls.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river – alive, but not still whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand. So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHeld is a novel like no other, by a writer at the height of her powers: affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom and compassion. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003e'I am blown away by the scale, beauty, weave and thinking of this book ... It dances with words, time and ideas in a way that seems to reinvent everything I know about the novel'\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRACHEL JOYCE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e\n\u003cem\u003e'Michaels’s writing continues to stand head and shoulders above most other fiction' \u003c\/em\u003eOBSERVER\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003e'Michaels is exceptionally open to beauty'\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGUARDIAN\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53249242988931,"sku":"9781526659125","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0014\/7570\/6953\/files\/9781526659118.jpg?v=1727432144","url":"https:\/\/maxminervas.live\/products\/held","provider":"Max Minerva's Marvellous Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}