Five Bells

A powerful novel that tells the story of four people whose lives are bound together by a single dramatic event.

Thoughtful, intelligent and intensely lyrical, Five Bells is likely to consolidate an already considerable literary reputation

A story peopled by achingly real characters, memorably related in delicate, ornate prose, and throbbing with loss

Jones's writing has the intensity of a dream, and the pattern she makes of the characters' lives is beautiful, managing to combine tension with lyricism

A novel that reaches beyond the glittering surface of Sydney to capture the rippling patterns of a wider human history with singular beauty and power

GAIL JONES teaches literature, cinema and cultural studies at the University of Western Australia. She is the author of Sixty Lights which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Dreams of Speaking and Sorry, both of which were longlisted for the Orange Prize.

On a radiant day in Sydney, four people converge on Circular Quay, site of the iconic Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Each of the four is haunted by secrets from the past: Ellie is preoccupied by her sexual experiences as a girl, James by a tragedy for which he feels responsible, Catherine by the loss of her beloved brother in Dublin and Pei Xing by her imprisonment during China's Cultural Revolution. 
 
Told over the course of a single Saturday, Five Bells vividly describes four lives which chime and resonate. By night-time, when Sydney is drenched in a rainstorm, each life has been transformed.

Sorry

The birth of a daughter in the Australian outback pushes the parents to the edges of sanity. Vivid psychological family drama, expertly crafted by the author Dreams of Speaking.

She has a gift for lyricism and elegant imagery... leaves a lovely legacy

Shards of poetry stud Jones' writing like diamonds

Gail Jones teaches literature, cinema and cultural studies at the University of Western Australia. She is the author of Sixty Lights which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Dreams of Speaking and Sorry, both of which were longlisted for the Orange Prize, and Five Bells.

This is a story that can only be told in a whisper... 
 
In the remote outback of Western Australia, English anthropologist Nicholas Keene and his wife Stella raise a curious child, Perdita. Her childhood is far from ordinary; a shack in the wilderness, with a distant father burying himself in books and an unstable mother whose knowledge of Shakespeare forms the backbone of the girl's limited education. Emotionally adrift, Perdita develops a friendship with an Aboriginal girl, Mary, with whom she will share a very special bond. She appears content with her unusual family life in this remote corner of the globe until Nicholas Keane is discovered murdered...

Dreams of Speaking

Metropolitan lives and modern invention are juxtaposed with troubled histories, love, loss and loneliness in this exquisitely crafted new novel from the author of Sixty Lights

Jones has attempted and succeeded in writing a work that is both determinedly cerebral and emotionally alive

Shards of poetry stud Jones' writing like diamonds as she switches masterfully between a lyrical and academic register

Gail Jones teaches literature, cinema and cultural studies at the University of Western Australia. She is the author of Sixty Lights which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Sorry, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and Five Bells.

Far away from home and her beloved but distant sister, Norah, Alice meets an old Japanese man on a train journey. Together they form an unlikely friendship at a crucial point in Alice's life where she is reflecting upon her family and her past, and disentangling herself from an old love affair. 
 
Alice is fascinated by the poetry of technology, and Mr Sakomoto, a survivor of the atomic bomb, entrances her with his amazing stories of twentieth-century inventions, including Alexander Graham Bell and the mysteries of the telephone. Drawn together by their shared enthusiasms, these two solitary beings slowly come to rely on one another. 
 
In Dreams of Speaking, prize-winning author Gail Jones paints with grace and skill the experience of needing to belong despite wanting to be alone.

Sixty Lights

'Breathtaking grace and immense skill... Engaging, beautiful, magical and compelling' Irish Times

Jones has a flair for luminous and accurate prose... A passionate book

Gem-like, lyrical portrait of a girl growing-up

Reads like a luminous album of photographs marked by an almost unbearable sadness

Sixty Lights is the captivating chronicle of Lucy Strange, an independent girl growing up in the Victorian world. From her childhood in Australia through to her adolescence in England and Bombay and finally to London, Lucy is fascinated by light and by the new photographic technology. Her perception of the world is passionate and moving, revealed in a series of frozen images captured in the camera of her mind's eye showing her feelings about love, life and loss. In this confident, finely woven and intricate novel Jones has created an unforgettable character in Lucy; visionary, gifted and exuberant, she touches the lives of all who know her.

Gail Jones

Brimming with rich descriptions… The dark, haunted cityscape of Berlin’s winter is beautifully captured… Jones explores her power as a writer, finding fresh and illuminating ways to describe things… A powerful exploration of biography, memory and meaning.

Jones’ sensitivity to the vibrancy of things demonstrates a Nabokovian vividness.

A thoughtful study of the machinations of memory.

An ode to detail… A meditation on memory, travel and grief, on self-fashioning and onliterary friendship.

I’ve always felt that Gail Jones is yet to receive the recognition she deserves. This is her sixth 
novel and it is, I believe, a masterpiece. It is a beautifully constructed novel that builds slowly 
to its horrific and violent conclusion

Brave and brilliant, A Guide to Berlin traces the strength and fragility of our connections through biographies and secrets.

A whimsical, writerly premise that in lesser hands might have been strained, but is brought to life with wit and without self-indulgence. A Guide to Berlin is a tense, elegant and compassionate exploration of memory, humanity and salvation sought in literature. Threads unspool slowly with every precisely weighted word, and the relationships between these relative strangers are compelling and fraught

Gail Jones' latest novel is a brave and brilliant testament to Vladimir Nabokov and his short story 'A Guide to Berlin'

A cool, cerebral and intriguing exploration of the impact of past events and of the slenderthreads that bind us

Berlin feels very much like a character in its own right, and it’s beautifully evoked through the eyes of an antipodean experiencing a Northern Hemisphere winter for the first time.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2016 STELLA PRIZE 
 
We travel to find ourselves; to run away from ourselves. 
 
‘A Guide to Berlin’ is the name of a short story written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1925, when he was a young man of 26, living in Berlin. 
 
A group of six international travellers, two Italians, two Japanese, an American and an Australian, meet in empty apartments in Berlin to share stories and memories. Each is enthralled in some way by the work of Vladimir Nabokov, and each is finding their way in deep winter in a haunted city. A moment of devastating violence shatters the group, and changes the direction of everyone’s story. 
 
Brave and brilliant, A Guide to Berlin traces the strength and fragility of our connections through biographies and secrets.

Gail Jones

Praise for A Guide to Berlin

Brimming with rich descriptions… The dark, haunted cityscape of Berlin’s winter is beautifully captured… Jones explores her power as a writer, finding fresh and illuminating ways to describe things… A powerful explo ...

Jones’ sensitivity to the vibrancy of things demonstrates a Nabokovian vividness.

A thoughtful study of the machinations of memory.

Brimming with rich descriptions… The dark, haunted cityscape of Berlin’s winter is beautifully captured… Jones explores her power as a writer, finding fresh and illuminating ways to describe things… A powerful explo ...

Jones’ sensitivity to the vibrancy of things demonstrates a Nabokovian vividness.

A thoughtful study of the machinations of memory.

Brimming with rich descriptions… The dark, haunted cityscape of Berlin’s winter is beautifully captured… Jones explores her power as a writer, finding fresh and illuminating ways to describe things… A powerful explo ...

Jones’ sensitivity to the vibrancy of things demonstrates a Nabokovian vividness.

A thoughtful study of the machinations of memory.

Books by Gail Jones

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