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Title details for School for Love by Olivia Manning - Available

School for Love

by Olivia Manning
Jane Smiley
ebook
3 of 3 copies available
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3 of 3 copies available
An orphaned teen comes-of-age in 1945 Jerusalem in this “brilliantly perceptive” historical fiction novel offering a portrait of Middle Eastern politics and life on the precipice (New York Times).

“Olivia Manning’s work has been out of sight for decades, but her newly reissued School for Love is about to charm and startle a whole new generation of readers.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

Jerusalem in 1945 is a city in flux: refugees from the war in Europe fill its streets and cafés, the British colonial mandate is coming to an end, and tensions are on the rise between the Arab and Jewish populations. Felix Latimer, a recently orphaned teenager, arrives in Jerusalem from Baghdad, biding time until he can secure passage to England.
Adrift and deeply lonely, Felix has no choice but to room in a boardinghouse run by Miss Bohun, a relative he has never met. Miss Bohun is a holy terror, a cheerless miser who proclaims the ideals of a fundamentalist group known as the Ever-Readies—joy, charity, and love—even as she makes life a misery for her boarders. Then Mrs. Ellis, a fascinating young widow, moves into the house and disrupts its dreary routine for good.
Olivia Manning’s great subject is the lives of ordinary people caught up in history. Here, as in her panoramic depiction of World War II, The Balkan Trilogy, she offers a rich and psychologically nuanced story of life on the precipice, and she tells it with equal parts compassion, skepticism, and humor.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 29, 2013

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781590175286

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781590175286
      • File size: 427 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      May 11, 2009
      It's 1945, and the recently orphaned Felix Latimer is staying with a distant relative in Jerusalem while awaiting passage home to England. Left on his own in a city teeming with European refugees, Arab and Jewish residents, and British colonial rulers, he makes some unlikely friends, falls in love, acquires a cat, and takes responsibility for his own life. Verdict: Best known for her Balkan and Levant trilogies, British writer Manning (d. 1980) has a small but loyal following. Like the trilogies, this 1951 publication focuses on how war affected ordinary people and uses to perfection minor characters, including the cat, to evoke the tensions and absurdities of Felix's situation. This portrait of Middle Eastern politics is especially timely; highly recommended.-Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, OR

      Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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