I should say that this isn't the kind of book I would normally go for, but I've read a lot of glowing reviews from people whose opinions I respect, so I decided to take a look.

I loved the premise and the setting (wartime Florence, hidden Renaissance masterpiece) but found the tone too self-consciously whimsical. I couldn't stop thinking that these were characters who had been written and I found it impossible to immerse myself in the story.

So, my first reaction was right for me, but if this is your kind of book don't let me put you off.

Another gorgeous book from Sarah Winman, full of soul and light and love. In this book she constructs a rowdy, ragtag cast of hugely loveable characters, and we follow them over the decades, beginning in the Second World War, and travelling from Florence to the East End of London and back again. It's about history and art and love, and most of all it's about the way we build our own families, creating bonds that tie us together, no matter the distance between us.

Loved this. Fabulous writing and storytelling from Sara Winman. Again. Loved every word. Sorry about the late review.

What a fabulous and well written book this is! Florence comes to life beautifully from the pen of Sarah Winman, as do her perfectly rounded characters. I wanted to join them in the cafe and talk about their shared experiences and lives and loves.

I thoroughly recommend this book and would buy it and lend it and read something else written by the same author.

At first glance, I thought it will be slow the rest of the book and again I WAS WRONG. The story is truly a lovable life family drama. This is where strangers at the first place ended up being a family.

We have Ulysses, Peg, Cress, Alys(Kid), Pete and Col. Every each of them entertained me. Like each of them has diff personality that managed to cheer up the book. This book is not about plot development, it's more to character's growth. Friendship & family themes just warmed my heart till the end.

Ulysses who loved Peg so much that he NEVER hold her back.He let her be what she wants to be and always be her side whenever she wants him. It sounds selfish for Peg to do so but he understands her dearly. Instead he let her go because HE LOVED HER SO MUCH. He even adopted Alys (Peg's child) which at the first place she didn't want her because it reminded her ‘Eddie' her lover who just dissapeared for the rest of Peg's life. Ulysses is the best man in this story.

I think I love Cress the most. He is the most knowledgeable man in this story. He can tell facts in anywhere he wants. He always cheer up his family with facts.

Alys the kid, the kid who represent the youth in the family. The kid who wants to express herself in love. The kid who so hungry for love of her mother and yet she still survived thanks to her father, Ulysses. She's a tough girl I can say even when she was a kid.

Other characters also enjoyable because without them, this story would be bland. They completed each other tbh. They really deserve to be a family. Plus, I REALLY REALLY REALLY LOVE THE SETTINGS! We were brought from the WW2 until the end of 70s. Those era just reminding the reader how beautiful the era was especially in Italy. Using ITALY was a superb idea! The details about places in Italy did brought me virtually travelled in Italy. I wanna go Italy especially Florence after this on a one fine day! Full of arts and sculptures were mentioned in the book and hence indirectly exposing me to Italian Art History.

Queer love representation also was strong in this book. Queer lovers would truly appreciated this book as it highlighted how lovely it was.

The writing doesn't even to be flowery to capture the reader's attention. Just with the right characters, theme and the place settings and you're good to go!

For negative part, I would say the beginning is kinda slow for me. The e-ARC quite confusing to me as it has no " " thing on the dialogue. I hope in the book for real, has " " this for good. There are some part where characters travelled to England-Italy but hardly indicate they travelled to so.

*****due to technical error, reviews on Goodreads has been made separately****

This book is incredible (in every sense).
One of my betes noires is the confusion of sliver/slither so imagine my reaction when I came across this sentence " The faint slither of daylight creeping through an occasional broken slat."
I recoiled in horror, but then read it again and I think she meant to associate slither with creeping, and she does use sliver correctly elsewhere. She is a very fine writer, so I would be surprised if it wasn't deliberate and the book is full of little gems like this either funny or shocking or both. e.g.
"She settled down on the sun-lounger and thought about Marcello Mastroianni. If she'd been alone, she'd have run an ice cube up the inside of her thigh and popped it in."
I had to read that twice to make sure I wasn't misreading it.

And elsewhere when talking about a dog-walker being struck by lightning "What happened to the dog"
"Cinders"
"Dead ?
"No, that was the name of the dog"
The whole beach heard me laugh at that one :) I cried in places too.

A beautiful book, even if there's lots that is unbelievable such as the beautifully apposite sayings of the parrot.

For all lovers of Italy (especially Florence), art, life, family and fine writing.

'Still Life' is a sprawling novel that begins in 1944 in Italy and goes on for decades.
This novel had so many things I love - first, some wonderfully memorable characters: Ulysses Temper - a British young man, whom we first meet during his stint in Italy during WWII. While there, he met the effusive and erudite sexagenarian, Evelyn Skinner, an art historian, a unique person. Their short meeting left an impression on each other.
Ulysses's wife and first love is Peg - a beautiful woman, independent and stubborn. Their relationship is unusual. They live in a room above a pub where they work.
Peg's "dalliance" with another man results in a baby girl. Ulysses adores her as if she were his biological daughter. He's a better parent than Peggy could ever be. The pub is filled with interesting characters - Col, the publican, Pete, an accomplished pianist struggling to make it, Cres, a father figure to Ulysses. To make things even more interesting, there's an extraordinary blue parrot named Claude. Claude is quite the character and a philosopher of sorts.

Ulysses' good deed, performed when in Italy during the war, sees him as the owner of a beautiful apartment in Florence. So, together with Peg's daughter Alys, Cress, and Claude the parrot, they make their way to their new life. A new location, a new business, a new language, new friends, - a life filled with light, love, good food, and the simple joys of life - the three ex-pats and their bird flourish.

The book is also filled with art and art appreciation; traveling and art as means to opening one's mind and heart.

This is not a perfect novel. Some might grumble about the overly precocious child, not to mention the surreal parrot. The book takes a little while to get going, it picks up the pace and becomes much more interesting once Ulysses and Co moved to Florence.

Despite its imperfections, 'Still Life' is full of heart; there are some extraordinarily beautiful paragraphs, there's tenderness, quirkiness, memorable characters, chance encounters, beautiful descriptions, and so much more.

Sarah Winman has become one of my favourite writers. Looking forward to reading whatever she writes next.

I'll start by declaring that I am a Sarah Winman fan. So I may be biased, but I LOVED this novel so much. I felt a deep sadness when I'd finished it. She writes the most amazing, eccentric and memorable characters and I fell in love with them all. If you love Italy, and Florence in particular, where much of the novel is set, you'll be in heaven. Unique and wonderful.

Sarah Winman has a great writing style that makes the characters jump off the page. I loved this story and enjoyed these characters come to life on the pages. Highly recommended.

I hate to say this but I very nearly gave up on this book which is something I very rarely do, the first chapter just wasn’t grabbing me and pulling me in at all but I stuck with it and I’m glad I did as the more we got to know Temper and his band of Merry friends and his relationship with Alys I found myself enjoying it more and more. The descriptions of Florence and the travels to get there draw you in.
I didn’t like that there was no grammar and sentences, it took me a while to get used to that. This book to me was about the characters, it’s the first book Iv read by this author and il def look at her others.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for allowing me the chance to read this copy.

This is an epic novel following the lives of core characters from 1944, through the war to 1970’s. Ulysses Temper, a soldier and Evelyn Skinner are the two main characters. Generally I thoroughly enjoy historical novels and more so where you see how their lives pan out over the decades.
I have to say I struggled with this book. It was more of an endurance rather than an enjoyable read. I can’t say I particularly liked any of the characters, nor did I care for them. The best character for me was Claude the parrot, because he was humorous and intelligent.
Pats of the book did peak my interest and engage, but for the latter part the discourse was rather dull and unengaging. The backdrop of Italy and other European countries was delightfully described. The book is quite artful and captures the endurance of deep friendship of time, whilst apart and together.
So whilst I could see the skill in the some of the writing, it didn’t capture me and I put too much hope thinking it was going to pick up and develop into a stronger story line or plot. It strikes me as a bit marmite, readers either love it or are underwhelmed by it.

An absolutely amazing novel. I would definitely recommend for fans of historical fiction. Still Life completely transports you to Florence and is so beautifully written.

This was my first Sarah Winman book and I’ll be definitely seeking out her other works.

This book started very slowly. About 10% of the way in, I was bored and frustrated and on the verge of giving up. The absence of speech marks was driving me crazy. And then, almost without me even noticing that it was happening, I got hooked. The characters were so endearing, so easy to care for, and so much the type of people I wanted to know and hang out with that I plugged on through to the end of this - admittedly very long - book, and wanted more.

It takes a very long time for the paths of the two early protagonists to ever cross again - with a few near misses along the way - but eventually, Evelyn and Ulysses will inevitably find each other again.

What I like most about Still Life is that it plays on the family we MAKE rather than the family we are born with. Ulysses and his non-daughter move to Italy, gathering wonderful people (and a parrot) as they go. I don't think any of them are related but each is essential to the story and to the other people. Cress and his shorts, Pete and his Piano, Peg and her easy morals and tragic beauty, Des the businessman, Col who runs the pub, and a host of equally endearing Italians all rub along beautifully.

There are multiple threads to please those who seek happy endings for lesbian and gay characters who are accepted entirely without reservations.
Enormous thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for this memorable and adorable book.

The story is good and it really takes you to Italy. However the structure of the book starts at the meeting, then goes to Tempers story, with them meeting up again, but then it goes all the way back to the beginning with Evelyn's story, which is where it should have started. You think you have finished the story and it goes back to before the beginning. The way it is written with lack of grammar and actual sentences makes it disjointed.. It is written by someone observing from a long way away so you don't really feel they know the characters, only observe what they do and say. Having said that, some of the scenes are great, such as the flood, and you do feel that little piazzo in Santo Spirito is a lovely part of Florence that you would like to visit.

Even though it is beautifully written, it didn't capture me as completely as "TIn Man". The book is much like a still life: it meanders on and what you get out of it depends largely on who you are, what your reading experience is and how patient you are. It is driven by atmosphere much more than by action and so occasionally I was on the verge of losing interest. The characters are the novel and the whole book echoes E.M. Foster so if you don't know who that is, you may be missing out. More an experience than a book, I would say it is for the patient literary aficionados.

This was so beautifully written. One of my favourite books I've read this year. It took me a few chapters to get into the very omniscient writing style but the more I read the more I loved the voice.

Charting the life of Ulysses Temper, starting when he was a young soldier at the end of World War Two. During his time in Italy, he meets art historian Evelyn Skinner and despite the difference in their ages (Evelyn is in her sixties), the pair form an interesting friendship whilst the work together to recover art treasures. The story goes on to follow Ulysses back to the East End of London where he settles down.

This was a beautifully written novel, with interesting characters. The storyline spread over many decades covering numerous historical event was well researched.

Many thanks to 4th Estate and NetGalley for the review copy.

Winman is a great writer, I have read and enjoyed her previous books but this one did not work for me. I had heard so many people talking about this and about the beautiful relationship between two strangers that meet and the unfolding of their lives, however something about this story just didn't connect fully with me.

I wonder if it was the right book at the wrong time and would be willing to try this again at another time. If you are looking to get lost in a slow paced character driven novel then this might be the one for you.

Still Life with its wry humour and great cast of characters (which includes a parrot) draws you straight in with a humorous conversation between Evelyn Skinner and a Margaret someone as they eat their lunch in the Tuscan hills while bombs drop in the distance as the Allied forces advance through Italy. Evelyn, an Art Historian has a chance meeting in Italy with a young soldier Ulysses Temper (who is the main character in this story).
The story centres on Ulysses and his group of friends and their local London pub. Ulysses is drawn back to Italy when he inherits some money and an Italian house. This is a story of coincidences with many chance meetings.
A gentle, feel good story that evokes the beauty of Italy, it’s art, it’s culture and a slower way of life.

I really enjoyed this, a wonderfully evocative story, with a charming cast of characters and a setting you can lose yourself in. The sights and sounds of Florence really take you there and it's all about the people and what they mean to each other. Would recommend for those who enjoy a story of relationships, the period setting and great storytelling!