It is 1923. Evangeline (Eva) English and her sister Lizzie are missionaries heading for the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar. Though Lizzie is on fire with her religious calling, Eva’s motives are not quite as noble, but with her green bicycle and a commission from a publisher to write A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar, she is ready for adventure.In present day London, a young woman, Frieda, returns from a long trip abroad to find a man sleeping outside her front door. She gives him a blanket and a pillow, and in the morning finds the bedding neatly folded and an exquisite drawing of a bird with a long feathery tail, some delicate Arabic writing, and a boat made out of a flock of seagulls on her wall. Tayeb, in flight from his Yemeni homeland, befriends Frieda and, when she learns she has inherited the contents of an apartment belonging to a dead woman she has never heard of, they embark on an unexpected journey together.
A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar explores the fault lines that appear when traditions from different parts of an increasingly globalized world crash into one other. Beautifully written, and peopled by a cast of unforgettable characters, the novel interweaves the stories of Frieda and Eva, gradually revealing the links between them and the ways in which they each challenge and negotiate the restrictions of their societies as they make their hard-won way toward home. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar marks the debut of a wonderfully talented new writer.
374 pages. (May 2012)
Book Page at BookBrowse.
Lit Guide from LitLovers.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Suzanne Joinson talks about A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar:
Title Read-alikes: Everything Under the Sky by Matilde Asensi; The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay; The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark; Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters; The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan; The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif; The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes; The Space Between Us by Thrity N. Umrigar; A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena de Blasi; Swimming with Elephants by Sarah Bamford Seidelmann; The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian; and The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan.
No comments:
Post a Comment