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Noonday Audiobook
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Publisher Description
A new novel from the Booker Prize–winning Pat Barker, author of the Regeneration trilogy, that unforgettably portrays London during the Blitz and reaffirms her place as a top-ranked British novelist
London, the Blitz, Autumn 1940. As the bombs fall on the blacked-out city, ambulance driver Elinor Brooke races from bomb sites to hospitals in order to save the lives of injured survivors. She works alongside former friend Kit Neville while her husband, Paul Tarrant, works as an air-raid warden.
Once fellow students at the Slade School of Fine Art before the First World War destroyed the hopes of their generation, they now find themselves caught in another war, this time at home. As the bombing intensifies, the constant risk of death makes all three reach out for quick consolation. And into their midst comes the spirit medium Bertha Mason, grotesque and unforgettable, whose ability to make contact with the deceased finds vastly increased demand as death rains down from the skies. Old loves and obsessions resurface until Elinor is brought face-to-face with an almost impossible choice.
Completing the story that began with Life Class and continued with Toby’s Room, Noonday is both a stand-alone novel and the climax of a trilogy. Writing about the Second World War for the first time, Pat Barker brings the besieged and haunted city of London into electrifying life in her most powerful novel since the Regeneration trilogy.
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“While this novel stands on its own merit, to fully appreciate Noonday, listeners will first want to hear Booker Prize winner Pat Barker’s previous books in the trilogy, Life Class and Toby’s Room. The stellar cast transforms returning characters Elinor, Paul, and Kit into credible people…Each performance is a small gem, illuminating the determination of a people that hundreds of Nazi night raids couldn’t extinguish.”
— AudioFile
Quotes
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“Noonday is the final volume in a trilogy that includes Life Class and Toby’s Room. You don’t need to have read either of the earlier books to appreciate this one, which is a fine and satisfying novel in its own right.”
— Financial Times (London) -
“Noonday is nothing if not historical, bristling with period detail and gritty, well-researched atmosphere. Here, as you’d expect, Pat Barker excels.”
— Guardian (London) -
“Ms. Barker deftly handles a large cast…Historical fiction of a high order.”
— New York Times -
“[A] powerful, ambitious historical novel…War images are searing, as well as up close and personal…Its sweep makes us truly appreciate life and death in a decimated landscape.”
— NPR.org -
“Barker is as subtle and tough-minded here about human nature as in all her work. Yet the closing pages suggest the possibility of new beginnings even as they acknowledge the permanence of old wounds…A strong example of this gifted British writer’s intelligent, uncompromising way with fiction.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Awards
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A New York Times Editor’s Choice for March 2016
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A NPR Best Book of 2016
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About Pat Barker
Pat Barker is an English novelist who has won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Booker Prize. In 2000 she was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
About the Narrators
Juliet Stevenson is a narrator who is recipient of the AudioFile Golden Voice Award. She has won the prestigious Audie Award and numerous Earphones Awards for her narrations. She is a British actress on stage and screen and notably a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has also appeared in popular films such as Bend It Like Beckham and Mona Lisa Smile. She was honored as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. She received further recognition when she was nominated for several BAFTA Awards, and she earned an Olivier Award for her role in Death and the Maiden.
Stephen Boxer is an English actor who is best known for his role as Joe on the BBC One soap opera Doctors. Aside from television, Boxer has had starring roles in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s productions of Titus Andronicus and King Lear, and has narrated the audiobook versions of Shakespeare’s Henry VI and Pat Barker’s Noonday.
John Sackville is an English actor and voice artist. He studied at St. Andrews University and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. He has since acted on stage and on camera and has narrated a number of audiobooks, computer games, documentaries, and commercials.
Anne Reid, MBE, is an English stage, film, and television actress. A BAFTA Award–nominee, she is best known for her roles as Valerie Barlow in Coronation Street and Jean in Dinnerladies.
Finlay Robertson is an actor, writer, and voice-over artist. He has appeared in Doctor Who, How Not to Live Your Life, and Alfie, among many other films and television series.
James Langton, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and later as a musician at the Guildhall School in London. He has worked in radio, film, and television, also appearing in theater in England and on Broadway. He is also a professional musician who led the internationally renowned Pasadena Roof Orchestra from 1996 to 2002.