Still Life

A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)

By: Sarah Winman

Narrated by: Sarah Winman

Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | A Veranda Magazine Book Club Pick

A captivating, bighearted, richly tapestried story of people brought together by love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster, by the celebrated author of Tin Man.

Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and set off on a course of events that will shape Ulysses's life for the next four decades.

As Ulysses returns home to London, re-immersing himself in his crew at The Stoat and Parot—a motley mix of pub crawlers and eccentrics—he carries his time in Italy with him. And when an unexpected inheritance brings him back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt fate, and returns to the Tuscan hills.

With beautiful prose, extraordinary tenderness, and bursts of humor and light, Still Life is a sweeping portrait of unforgettable individuals who come together to make a family, and a deeply drawn celebration of beauty and love in all its forms.

©2021 Sarah Winman (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

Winner of the InWords Literary Award

A Good Morning America Book Club Pick

A Veranda Magazine Book Club Pick

A Parade Best Book of the Year

One of:

The Millions's Most Anticipated Books of 2021

Bookbub's The Best Historical Fiction to Read This Fall

Parade’s 25 Books We’ve Loved Reading This Fall

Parade's Best Book of the Year

Veranda's 25 Best New Books for Fall 2021

Lit Hub’s Best Books of the Week November

"A tonic for wanderlust and a cure for loneliness. It’s that rare, affectionate novel that makes one feel grateful to have been carried along. Unfurling with no more hurry than a Saturday night among old friends, the story celebrates the myriad ways love is expressed and families are formed….Endlessly charming...The novel never feels anything less than captivating because Winman creates such a flawless illusion of spontaneity, an atmosphere capable of sustaining these characters’ macabre wit, comedy of manners and poignant longing." —The Washington Post

“The incredible storytelling, lovable characters, and sweeping settings make this novel an absolute delight, proving that serious fiction does not have to be only dark and depressing.” —Real Simple

“Sarah Winman’s sweeping Still Life is a parade of small stories, intimate connections and complex characters whose lives illuminate the tedium and cataclysms of the 20th century. . . . The real magic of Still Life is the elevation of the ordinary, the unabashed consecration of human experiences. . . . Sentence after sentence, character by character, Still Life becomes poetry.” —New York Times Book Review

One of the best!

I rarely reread books but I believe I will listen to this again one day
It was wonderful!

So good I need to lower all my past ratings

incredible. beautiful story. loved it so much I need to go back and lower all my past ratings.

A book to listen to rather than read

Some books, like those of Amor Towles, are far better when read TO you rather than BY you and this is one of those books. I loved this book. Beautiful writing. Terrific characters. A bit of dry wit peppered throughout. Great delivery by the reader. I agree with those who suggest the last chapter did not add to the book. I finally switched to double speed.

Author narrates like no other

I truly loved this story and having it narrated by the author made it truly special. The descriptions were so vivid. I felt like I was in Florence and I’m desperate to return. Highly recommend…👍

Takes a long time to get going but worth it

To be honest I really struggled to get in to this book. I kept putting it down for a week, coming back, wondering who these ever-changing characters were, what they were doing, and why do I care?

But the writing was so well done and beautiful prose I stuck with it and about 1/3 of the way thru it all started to click, I became very invested in the characters, and the story became compelling. Picking it up really took me out of my world and thoroughly in to theirs every time.

I can't laud enough praise on the vocal performance of this author/reader. She is amazing at an incredible variety of accents and genders and each character in the book has an immediately recognizable and different voice. Simply outstanding.

Phenomenal

By far the best read I’ve had in a while. If you like art, the unfolding of life and depth of character- this is for you.

Love Story to Firenze

Sarah Winman's love story to Florence is spectacularly written and read. She layers most of the decades of the last century in an intricate and soul nourishing tale centered in Italy.

Still Life illuminates the importance of art in culture. It brings us through two Herculean efforts to rescue art. First finding and returning art stolen during the World War II occupation. Secondly and more tragically the flood of 1966 when floodwaters from the Arno covered historic Florence. The High water mark can still be seen as high as 22 feet in Santa Croce. Volunteers called "Mud Angels" came from all over the world to join Italians in digging Florence, her art, historic manuscripts, records and buildings out from under 600,000 tons of mud, debris, and sewage.

She also shows us the power of love to connect and heal. By sewing small details of lives throughout the layers of time that touch forward and backward through the continuum of her story she connects an armful of characters and follows their lives and loves through the century, creating a wonderful heart family that I refused to leave when the book ended and so started it immediately over from the beginning.

On the narration, Sarah's skill as an actress brought her characters alive in a way that may have been better than my own mind could have heard them. I'm so happy that I listened instead of read. Thank you Sarah Winman. Especially for Claude.

A beautiful story

Nancy Pearl recommended this book. It is so beautifully written. I laughed. I cried. I read the book and then bought the Audible version and listened to it, and I’m so glad I did. The narrator does such a good job of bringing the story to life.

Excellent

I did not want this story to end. I miss the characters already. Wonderful narration

Magnificent in all the ways

Fulfilling and magical. I wish I could join the journey. A reminder of the wonder of living.