Up the Creek Book Club

Home Page

Current Book List

Prior Book Lists

King County Library

Barnes & Noble

Amazon.com

Possession

by AS Byatt

April 2002

Synopsis

Possession "Winner of England's Booker Prize."

"An exhilarating novel of wit and romance, an intellectual mystery, and a triumphant love story. This tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets became a huge bookseller favorite, and then on to national bestellerdom." (Publisher)

Reviews

"Gorgeously written...dazzling." (New York Times)
"[A] very Victorian "romance" of a detective story that satirizes academia but also becomes a concoction in the manner of Jorge Luis Borges." (Books of the Century, The New York Times)
A masterpiece of wordplay and adventure, a novel that compares with Stendhal and Joyce." (Los Angeles Times)

Book Club Rating and Comments

Possession generated quite a bit of discussion. Those who had finished the book liked it very much. Those who were only 100 to 200 pages into it, hated it. This book takes 150-200 pages to get into (granted, a long time). However, once you get past that point, it is hard to put down. It is almost as if two people wrote this book - one the beginning, one the end. All in all, well worth the read, and we would recommend it.

If you or your book club has read this book and would like to share your comments, please email us at upthecreekbc@yahoo.com.

Other Books by AS Byatt

'Angels and Insects'
'Babel Tower'
'The Biographer's Tale'
'Bird Hand Book'
'The Djinn in Nightingales Eye'
'Elementals'
'The Game'
'On Histories and Stories'
'The Matisse Stories'
'Still Life'
'The Virgin in the Garden'