The Yellow Villa PDF Download

Author: Amanda Hampson
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
ISBN: 0143784358
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244

View

Book Description
‘People come to France to reinvent themselves...’ Mia and Ben, an Australian couple in their early thirties, have relinquished one dream and embraced another, selling their Sydney flat and purchasing an old yellow house in the picturesque village of Cordes-sur-Ciel in South-West France. They soon meet sophisticated neighbours Dominic and Susannah, a British couple in their sixties who welcome them warmly but whose own relationship is in crisis. Mia and Ben are immediately star-struck and impressed by their lavish hospitality. However, things with Dominic and Susannah are not what they first seem. Gradually secrets begin to surface, revealing details of a scandal Dominic and Susannah had hoped to leave behind in London. Reeling from these revelations, Mia and Ben no longer trust their own instincts and the peaceful idyll of their French life begins to unravel. Can Dominic and Susannah escape each other, and can Ben and Mia they find their way back to each other and the dream they shared? An intoxicating and hugely entertaining domestic drama by the bestselling author of The French Perfumer. Praise for Amanda Hampson: ‘A delightful, witty gem of a book that will keep you guessing right to the end.’ Susan Duncan ‘A tale with verve, sharp observations and humour.’ Sarah Turnbull ‘Beautifully written ... a cross between literary and popular fiction.’ Coast Living

Author: Adrien Goetz
Publisher: New Vessel Press
ISBN: 1939931819
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

View

Book Description
"Terrific."—Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes and Letters to Camondo "Makes you want to travel, do somersaults and stretches, drink champagne in evening dress, read, think ... Intoxicating."—Publishers Weekly Along the French Riviera in the early 1900s, an illustrious family in thrall to classical antiquity builds a fabulous villa—a replica of a Greek palace, complete with marble columns and frescoes depicting mythological gods. The Reinachs--related to other wealthy Jews like the Rothschilds and the Ephrussis—attempt to recreate a "pure beauty" lost in the 20th century. The narrator of this brilliant novel calls the imposing house an act of delirium, "proof that one could travel back in time, just like resetting a clock, and resist the outside world." The story of the villa and its glamorous inhabitants is recounted by the son of a servant from the nearby estate of Gustave Eiffel, designer of the Paris tower, and the two contrasting structures present opposite responses to modernity. The son is adopted by the Reinachs, initiated into the era of Socrates and instructed in classical Greek. He joins a family pilgrimage to Athens, falls in love with a married woman, and survives the Nazi confiscation of the house and deportation to death camps of Reinach grandchildren. This is a Greek epic for the modern era.

Author: Gerald Durrell
Publisher: Penguin Books Limited
ISBN: 9780241951460
Category : Corfu Island (Greece)
Languages : en
Pages : 307

View

Book Description
'What we all need,' said Larry, 'is sunshine . . . a country where we can grow.' 'Yes, dear, that would be nice,' agreed Mother, not really listening. 'I had a letter from George this morning - he says Corfu's wonderful. Why don't we pack up and go to Greece?' 'Very well, dear, if you like,' said Mother unguardedly. Escaping the ills of the British climate, the Durrell family - acne-ridden Margo, gun-toting Leslie, bookworm Lawrence and budding naturalist Gerry, along with their long-suffering mother and Roger the dog - take off for the island of Corfu. But the Durrells find that, reluctantly, they must share their various villas with a menagerie of local fauna - among them scorpions, geckos, toads, bats and butterflies. Recounted with immense humour and charm My Family and Other Animals is a wonderful account of a rare, magical childhood. 'Durrell has an uncanny knack of discovering human as well as animal eccentricities' Sunday Telegraph

Author: Amanda Hampson
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
ISBN: 0143784374
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209

View

Book Description
'Shorthand typist required by English speaker in the South of France. Live-in, full board plus salary commensurate with experience.' Iris Turner, an unworldly young Englishwoman, arrives in the French Riviera to take up a secretarial role for the mysterious Hammond Brooke. Living in a small, exclusive hotel among eccentric and unpredictable aristocrats and struggling to gain her employer’s trust, she soon realises that nothing is as it seems. Initiated into the mysterious world of perfume, she finds herself entangled in a web of intrigue and deception. Gradually discovering the truth, she gains a new understanding of the meaning of love, loyalty and betrayal. By the bestselling author of The Olive Sisters, this is a captivating and evocative novel full of surprising twists and turns. 'Hampson has created a vivid world and colourful characters ... a tale with verve, sharp observations and humour.’ Sarah Turnbull, author of Almost French

Author: Michael Haag
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1782833307
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 255

View

Book Description
The Durrell family are immortalised in Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals and its ITV adaptation, The Durrells. But what of the real life Durrells? Why did they go to Corfu in the first place - and what happened to them after they left? The real story of the Durrells is as surprising and fascinating as anything in Gerry's books, and Michael Haag, with his first hand knowledge of the family, is the ideal narrator, drawing on diaries, letters and unpublished autobiographical fragments. The Durrells of Corfu describes the family's upbringing in India and the crisis that brought them to England and then Greece. It recalls the genuine characters they encountered on Corfu - Theodore the biologist, the taxi driver Spiro Halikiopoulos and the prisoner Kosti - as well as the visit of American writer Henry Miller. And Haag has unearthed the story of how the Durrells left Corfu, including Margo's and Larry's last-minute escapes before the War. An extended epilogue looks at the emergence of Larry as a world famous novelist, and Gerry as a naturalist and champion of endangered species, as well as the lives of the rest of the family, their friends and other animals. The book is illustrated with family photos from the Gerald Durrell Archive, many of them reproduced here for the first time.

Author: Gerald Durrell
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0142004413
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 289

View

Book Description
The first book in Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy: a bewitching account of a rare and magical childhood on the island of Corfu, which was the inspiration for the Masterpiece PBS series The Durrells in Corfu. When the unconventional Durrell family can no longer endure the damp, gray English climate, they do what any sensible family would do: sell their house and relocate to the sunny Greek isle of Corfu. My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the island but ended up as a delightful account of Durrell’s family’s experiences, from the many eccentric hangers-on to the ceaseless procession of puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies into their home.

Author: Amanda Hampson
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
ISBN: 1742281494
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 229

View

Book Description
'I open the gate and walk into the field . . . As the sun pours a river of light down this valley, I realise there are hundreds and hundreds of trees and I've seen those silver leaves before, not here in Australia, but shimmering in the groves that grace the terraced hillsides of Tuscany.' When Adrienne's marketing company goes down, her lifestyle does too. She retreats from the city to the beautiful, abandoned olive grove once owned by her Italian grandparents. A 'tree change' isn't what Adrienne has in mind, however, and life in the country delivers some surprises as she confronts the past and learns the secrets of the Olive Sisters . . . Old loves, new loves, warm toast and rich traditions are all part of the delicious blend of this absorbing story.

Author: Amanda Hampson
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 014379213X
Category : Australian fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354

View

Book Description
"In their youth, lovebirds Elizabeth and Ray had to fight to be together. Their future was full of promise and, blessed with children and careers, their happiness complete. But a twist of fate changed their lives forever. Now in her sixties, Elizabeth is desperately lonely. She rarely sees her two adult sons and her closest friend is a talkative budgie. But when her grandson, Zach, gets into trouble with the police, she decides to take him on a road trip to find his grandfather, her lost love Ray, in the hope of mending their broken family. Two less compatible travelling companions would be hard to find, as they set off on an unlikely adventure into the wilds of the northern NSW hinterland. What they discover along the way, about Ray and each other, has the power to transform them all. In trying to save Zach, Elizabeth might just save herself."--Publisher.

Author: Paige Toon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593715578
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 314

View

Book Description
In the spirit of Colleen Hoover and Josie Silver’s One Day in December, a heartbreaking story of star-crossed, fated love, and two people who are brought together and torn apart every five years until they must make a choice that’s bigger than their lives alone. A love stronger than distance. A fate determined by time. Nell and Van meet as children when their parents fall in love. They become best friends and each other’s whole world. Then tragedy strikes and Van is sent to the other side of the globe. Five years later, they find each other again. But they’re no longer children and the bond between them smolders into flames. New feelings surprise them both. They are destined, soulmates. Until an untimely discovery tears them apart again. For the next two decades, fate brings Nell and Van together every five years, even as life and circumstance divide them. They will have to make a choice, but it’s bigger than their lives alone. Is it bigger than their love?

Author: E. Lee Walker
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 162349785X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 164

View

Book Description
When twenty-one-year-old Michael Dell asked E. Lee Walker to be the president of his fledgling computer company, PC’s Limited, Walker, in his mid-forties, immediately thought about all the people who had helped him through life—as an undergraduate at Texas A&M (class of ’63), a graduate student at Harvard, and a once-young entrepreneur himself. As he and Dell created the foundation of what would become one of the most successful companies in the world, Walker was guided by the lessons of his past business ventures, by his belief in the power of imagination, and by his relationships with people who had provided encouragement when he most needed it. When he left Dell Computer Corporation to teach, Walker discovered that the stories he took with him—of his aspirations, of his failures and triumphs, and of his friends and mentors—were the key to engaging and inspiring his students. Here, Walker records those stories in a memoir that spans five decades and reveals a man whose curiosity, resourcefulness, and luck led him out of South Texas and into corporate boardrooms, university lecture halls, and community activism. In fast-paced tales about life as a high-tech entrepreneur, adjunct professor, civic leader, and environmental advocate, Walker manages to convey the importance of creative thinking and communal effort in all his endeavors. Originally offered to a small group of college students in Italy for study abroad, this affecting memoir will introduce to a wider audience not only a seasoned executive and philanthropist but also a wise and delightful storyteller.