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Noonday

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Noonday

By: Pat Barker
Narrated by: Anne Reid, Finlay Robertson, John Sackville, Juliet Stevenson, Stephen Boxer
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About this listen

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Noonday by Pat Barker, read by Juliet Stevenson, Stephen Boxer, John Sackville, Anne Reid & Finlay Robertson

From the Booker Prize-winning and Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the Girls

The final novel in Pat Barker's acclaimed 'Life Class' trilogy - an unforgettable story of art and war, from one of our greatest writers on war and the human heart

'Bold, hard-hitting, unforgettable, with luminous and unsparing insight' Independent on Sunday

'Barker's command of detail and gift for metaphor are as sharp as ever... Noonday is in the first rank' Mail on Sunday

'[There is] no end to her talent in describing how conflicts rupture the soul' Arifa Akbar, Independent


London, the Blitz, autumn 1940. As the bombs fall on the blacked-out city, ambulance driver Elinor Brooke races from bomb sites to hospitals trying to save the lives of injured survivors, working alongside former friend Kit Neville, while her husband Paul works as an air-raid warden. As the bombing intensifies, the constant risk of death makes all three of them reach out for quick consolation. Old loves and obsessions re-surface until Elinor is brought face to face with an almost impossible choice. Writing about the Second World War for the first time, Pat Barker brings the besieged and haunted city of London into electrifying life.

The Life Class trilogy:
Life Class
Toby's Room
Noonday

20th Century Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction War & Military England
All stars
Most relevant
The characters are used fairly sparingly to string together some vivid, detailed descriptions of
life in the Second World War, especially the London Blitz.

Almost a documentary

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I read the book before listening, as I do all Pat Barker's, who hasn't written a bad book and I doubt is capable of doing. The second best book in this trilogy (the best being Toby's Room). The range of voices is well done, though of course there is the generic Northern accent used for Paul, who if I remember correctly is from the North East. You wouldn't know that from listening to this, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Another great novel from Pat Barker

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