Publication

2015 - Hodder & Stoughton

Language

English

Word Count

56,000 words, Guess

Page Count

224 pages

Identifiers

  • ISBN-139781473610859
  • ISBN-101473610850
  • Library of Congress Control Number2014482244
  • OCLC Control Number915913556
  • Better World Books9781473610859
and 1 more

Classifications

  • LCCPR6107.R44433 A6 2015

Description

The twelve stories in this startling collection range over centuries and across the world. There are stories about those who are lonely, or estranged, or out of time. There are hauntings, both literal and metaphorical; and acts of cruelty and neglect but also of penance. Some stories concern themselves with the present, and the mundane circumstances in which people find themselves: a woman who feels stuck in her life imagines herself in different jobs - as a lighthouse keeper in Wales, or as a guard against polar bears in a research station in the Arctic. Some stories concern themselves with the past: a sixteenth-century alchemist and doctor, whose arrogance blinds him to people's dissatisfaction with their lives until he experiences it himself. Finally, in the title story, a sailor gives his account - violent, occasionally funny and certainly tragic - of the decline of the Great Auk.

Subjects

Topics

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