Light Perpetual Audiobook By Francis Spufford cover art

Light Perpetual

A Novel

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Light Perpetual

By: Francis Spufford
Narrated by: Imogen Church
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Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, NPR, Slate, Lit Hub, Fresh Air, and more

From the critically acclaimed and award‑winning author of Golden Hill, an “extraordinary…symphonic…casually stunning” (The Wall Street Journal) novel tracing the infinite possibilities of five lives in the bustling neighborhoods of 20th-century London.

Lunchtime on a Saturday, 1944: the Woolworths on Bexford High Street in South London receives a delivery of aluminum saucepans. A crowd gathers to see the first new metal in ages—after all, everything’s been melted down for the war effort. An instant later, the crowd is gone; incinerated. Among the shoppers were five young children.

Who were they? What futures did they lose? This brilliantly constructed novel, inspired by real events, lets an alternative reel of time run, imagining the lives of these five souls as they live through the extraordinary, unimaginable changes of the bustling immensity of twentieth-century London. Their intimate everyday dramas, as sons and daughters, spouses, parents, grandparents; as the separated, the remarried, the bereaved. Through decades of social, sexual, and technological transformation, as bus conductors and landlords, as swindlers and teachers, patients and inmates. Days of personal triumphs and disasters; of second chances and redemption.

Ingenious and profound, full of warmth and beauty, Light Perpetual “offers a moving view of how people confront the gap between their expectations and their reality” (The New Yorker) and illuminates the shapes of experience, the extraordinariness of the ordinary, the mysteries of memory, and the preciousness of life. 20th Century Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction England Heartfelt

Critic reviews

“With such vibrant characters, all of whom have rich interior lives, Spufford’s novel is perfect for audio…Scottish-born actor Imogen Church, known for her performances of Ruth Ware’s audiobooks, gives a wonderful voice to each of the five as they progress from childhood to old age.” (Deborah Mason)
Beautiful Writing • Richly Drawn Characters • Compassionate Storytelling • Alternative History Concept • Redemptive Ending

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This is one of those novels that manages to contain the world. Come for the sumptuous sentences; stay for the beautiful exploration of redemption.

Transcendently written and brilliantly performed.

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Wonderful. Beautifully written and perfectly performed. The opening scene is tremendous and the rest does not disappoint.

Rich with detail and deeper meaning

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I listened to this book because I loved "Cahokia Jazz" and this one had good reviews. I loved "Cahokia Jazz" because Mr. Spufford created a fully immersive, believable alternative history timeline. "Light Perpetual" seems to be his first attempt at doing that, and it was not as successful. There is no doubt that he is a beautiful writer and this was a great idea, but it did not feel well-executed. I had a terrible time connecting with most of the characters, and therefore found it a terrible slog to get through. Why save these children from death only to give them horrible lives? The only one that held my interest throughout was Jo. I had a hard time caring for the girlfriend of the Nazi, the Marxist typesetter, and the selfish realtor. Spoiler Alert: The final straw was the schizophrenic with intrusive thoughts of cannibalism. It was a vivid and probably accurate description of the difficulties of a schizophrenic, and I empathize with the character's struggles. But cannibalism seems to be a fairly niche literary market and not one that I am interested in. Yes, there was redemption at the end, particularly for Jo, Val, and Alec, and there was some beautiful writing, but I want 8 of my 12 hours back. The reader was good - particularly with the different British accents. This is probably more on the director than her, but she would go from screeching dramatic crescendo that had me pulling my ear buds out, to immediate whisper quiet which made me have to jack to the volume up to full blast and then rewind multiple times to hear what she was saying. A little modulation might have been helpful.

I really wanted to like this book

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At the beginning, I had trouble concentrating on the lives described, in their stunning intricacy, as I continued remembering...they died; these lives never happened. Finally, I was able to give in to the ineluctible weave of this master storyteller's tale.
This is a remarkable achievement and a memorable reading experience. Thank you, Frances Spofford.
Brilliant.

deep and beautiful

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Such a magnificent ode to hope, full of futures, pasts spawned by and ending in dust. Never read anything comparable.

Brilliant narration

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