In a Land of Plenty

I cannot remember reading a book that has moved me so much. It starts off very slowly as it teaches you about the characters but by the end of the book the identification you have with the characters is amazing. Reading the final few pages will make even the hardest heart crack as you struggle to come to terms with what happens. This book left me almost in a state of shock and I cannot remember reading a book that is built on such a rollercoaster of emotion. Please read this book.

I loved this captivating story and was intrigued from the outset. I feel like I know the characters, and indeed I can recognise many of them in my own circle of family and friends. The story is rich, realistic and absorbing. Tim Pears has a firm grasp of the intricacies of the human psyche and delves into it without abandon. I entered a period of mourning following the closing tragedy, as I felt like I had lost a friend. But, hey!life goes on, and that's what it's all about in the end.

I must confess to a degree of sentimentality, but the weight of sadness and emotion that infuses this novel-through the limited use of flashbacks-creates a dam which bursts when the foreshadowed events destroy the lives of those we've come to care about. Tears rolled down my face on the train as I rode to work.As the lives of the family are chronicled, the reader is left alone to play the game of 'ifs, buts and maybes', to provide their own view of cause and effect.Wonderful

The story flowed nicely....I loved this book..it was so touching and so absorbing.The characters were vivid and likeable.Few books have made me stay up all night to finish it but this one did..it got me hooked down to the very last page.At first i was a little skeptical on reading it because i don't really go for books such as these but this was really good and it made me cry as it was so sad and felt so real.I recommend this to everyone.Simple but absorbing and very very touching.

I was shocked at the review of this book given in the Washington Post (Jonathon Yardley). He didn't like it. I believe he suggested that the language was "coy." Hardly. I loved this book. Sprawling, intimately detailed, and lovingly rendered, this books tells the story of a British family from the 50s to the 90s. It is eloquent and touching, I haven't stayed up all night to finish a book since I was a child, but I did with this one, crying most of the time through the last pages. Pears loves his characters, and they, in turn, are alive and vivid.