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Stanley and Rose live in Rawlinson Road, Islington, surrounded by younger, smarter families like the Orams. Encroached on by age and affluence, the only answer to their problems, in spite of everything, lies in their fierce and prickly devotion to each other. ... Read more

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Evie and Shona, born almost 70 years apart, are women of very different personalities. But as their stories unfold, it becomes apparent that they share much more than their yearning to find the mothers they never knew. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Explores Feelings of Parents and Adopted Children
I was adopted as a child, at the age of six (both parents killed in a car accident when I was four).I found this story of two orphaned children to be well worth reading.I enjoyed it more than another book by the same author, Hidden Lives.What I enjoyed most was looking at how the two mothers felt about their illegitimate children, and how the two daughters felt about having been abandoned.It explores all four of these women's lives and feelings for the entire course of all four women's lives.I was fortunate to remember my real mother, and have people tell me about my real parents.This book made me reflect on the various possiblities of how different parents and children react to adoption, and I thought it was quite realistically done, even though all four women's cases were drastically different from my own.It is a book that really explores lives and feelings.

shadow baby
This book keeps the reader enthralled in its content. It tells parallel stories of two abandoned babies,searching for the missing link. A curiosity that only their real mother can provide.Kept in tune with their adventures,you will be surprised at how it comes together in the end.

HIghly recommended.
Shadow Baby is the story of two illegitimate daughters - one incontemporary Scotland, the other a century earlier, in the north ofEngland. It's very compulsive reading, a brilliantly told story that looksat the relationships between mothers and daughters and the social attitudesand economic conditions that can have a profound impact on our personalchoices and everyday lives. The characters are beautifully drawn and easyto identify with. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys writers likeMargaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Margaret Drabble. ... Read more

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The story of the legal and emotional battle for a child named Christabel, after her mother is suddenly killed. The author has written 15 novels from "Georgy Girl" to "Have the Men Had Enough?". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A slow but rewarding read
Warning: if you favour a fast-paced, plot-driven read, avoid this book. By the time you've finished the first chapter, you'll probably have roughly worked out what happens throughout the rest of the book. However, if you're more interested in detailed characterisation and sharp wit, you won't be disappointed. 'The Battle for Christabel' has both in spades. Telling the tale of Isobel, whose best friend Rowena has recently died and left a young daughter, it manages to be highly emotive whilst never straying into cloying sentimental territory.

It has to be said, Forster is adept at creating utterly fascinating characters. You may not like a large portion of the characters - indeed, I doubt that many of them were created to be liked - but you cannot help but remain interested in them throughout the book, because they are just so undeniably human.In particular, I found the relationship between Isobel and Rowena thoroughly intriguing.

The book is not without its faults - the ending, I feel, is a bit flat, and there are some pretty amateurish attempts at imagery - but on the whole, this is a compelling, superbly-written novel tackling the thorny subject that is motherhood. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
"The BP Portrait Award", now in its twenty-seventh year, is a popular fixture on the summer calendar, and is the leading showcase for young artists specialising in portraiture. The competition is open to artists from around the world and last year received a record-number of over 1000 entrants, all competing for the main prize of GBP 25,000. As well as featuring all the entries from this year's competition, this arresting book includes a fascinating essay by novelist and biographer, Margaret Forster and an illustrated article by Joel Ely, the travel-award winner 2005. Ely has made portraits of members of a Basque male gastronomic society known as the Txoko, which meets weekly to consume traditional Basque dishes, drink, talk and sometimes sing. He explores how cooking is a means of communication and a way of defining cultural identity and authenticity. It includes a Fine Art exhibition catalogue and a contemporary portraiture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"You're no beauty and nothing could make you one. But you're unusual."
It is London in the early 1960s. Queen Elizabeth II is on the throne. Distinguished novelist and biographer Margaret Forster created a sensation with her 1965 GEORGY GIRL. Forster was soon writing a screenplay for a 1966 movie starring Lynn Redgrave as 27-year old virgin Georgina Parkin; with James Mason as Georgina's parents' wealthy, congenial 49-year old employer, James Leamington; with Charlotte Redgrave as 26-year old nymphomaniac violinist Meredith Montgomery; and Alan Bates as onetime bank clerk and now struggling musician Jos Jones. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and won other important competitions.

The movie's theme song by the young Melbourne, Australia musicians, THE SEEKERS (still playing and still popular Down Under) is catchy, bouncy, upbeat. A 1970 musical version, GEORGY, flopped on Broadway after only four performances. To my knowledge GEORGY GIRL has not been done as a play, although with its compact cast it easily might. The underlying novel is short (my 1966 Berkeley Medallion paperback showingpensive 23-year old actgress Lynn Redgrave on the cover, has only 160 pages). It also moves very quickly, with everything taking place in a year or so.

Every character has a different take on Georgina Parkin:

-- By her parents, Ted and Doris Parkin, Georgina is called George. They do not know what makes George tick, but whatever it is, they dislike it. She is tall, overweight (for the film Lynn Redgrave made herself swell up to 180 pounds), clumsy, wears awful clothes, neglects her hair, has no sense of style and will never land a husband.

-- Ted is live-in valet/gardener/butler and Doris is cook/housekeeper to childless James Leamington and his bedridden wife Nelly. In the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930s James had given jobless auto mechanic Ted a soft job and Ted continually grovels in gratitude to his amiable, easy-going, philandering boss. Childless James Leamington calls Georgina Georgy-porgy and has, down the decades, slowly fallen in love with her for her originality, spunk and unconventional ways. James has paid for George's expensive educadtion, including a disastrous finishing school year in Paris. She teaches dance three times a week to young children in a large upstairs room that James has allowed her to make over into a studio.The novel is basically about how Georgy-porgy reacts during the five months or so after James gives her a written draft contract which would bind Georgy to be James's mistress and James to adopt any resulting children. At a key point in the negotiations, realistic James tells Georgy-porgy: "You're no beauty and nothing could make you one. But you're unusual. All you need is a good stylist. I'll see you get it" (Ch. 5).

-- Meredith Anna Montgomery is a petite, exotic, brooding violinist performing with a good orchestra. Meredith, in many ways a lazy, profligate (four abortions already), unkempt flat mate has accepted George's invitation to lodge with her. Meredith's one virtue (in her own mind) is her total indifference to all persons and situations. She expects George to cater to her every whim and to give up the bedroom whenever a lover wants to share it with Meredith. George obliges.

-- Jos Jones has given up bank clerking for music. He is crazy about Meredith and when she invites him to marry her and be their coming child's father, Jos happily agrees. He moves in with Meredith and George exchanges her bed for a couch. Just as Meredith is about to give birth, Jos seduces George and they have a passionate three month relationship that continues after the arrival of baby Sara. Ever detached and self-seeking, Meredith persuades Jos to give up Sara for adoption. She also readily agrees to a divorce so Jos can marry George. This George will do only if Jos reclaims Sara. After a few weeks, Jos walks away from Georgy and Sara, since Georgy admits she much prefers his baby to him.

On the day Sara is born, Mrs Nelly Leamington dies unexpectedly. James Leamington goes into a lengthy funk and tells his valet Ted (who tells daughter George) that he will soon remarry. George is shocked. After all she is still pondering the mistress contract. What kind of future can Georgy have as a single, unwed, substitute mother? And the tale rollicks along.

BOTTOM LINE: while not precisely funny, GEORGY GIRL is, I think, true, ironic comedy. It is also a credible story of largely unreligious, amoral people bouncing off one another, incessantly sizing one another (and themselves) up. All these clashing perspectives bring Georgina Parkin into unstable focus. She is hungry for sex, but would settle for a baby, any baby. Georgy is multi-faceted, not a good candidate for conventional normality. But who knows? Maybe Georgy Girl has a chance at something like personal contentment and happiness. Read this enduringly good novel and find out, enjoyably, for yourself! -OOO- ... Read more

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This tells of the lives and struggles of eight early reformers of the position of women in society. These courageous women were mocked, opposed, sexually insulted, publicly vilified and widely opposed for desiring higher education and the vote. ... Read more