Piranesi: WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2021 (Bloomsbury Publishing)

One of the best books I've ever read - a fantasic work of imagination, but also very well written. Beware, though, it's very difficult to put down, and you'll really miss Piranasi's world when you've finished...If you're not into sc-fi, don't be put off by anyone telling you that's what this is (it is, but it's also so much more). It's just great story, vey well told.

I initially thought I wouldn't cope with the pedantic recording of each diary entry, and the obsessional measurements and descriptions, but that was Piranesi's personality and I gradually got into the book. I looked up pictures from the real Piranesi, which helped me understand it. As the testing of Memory, Sanity, Reality and Fantasy get stretched and muddled, and possibly unwelcome spiritual dark forces make an entrance, I became quite frightened, as I was on my own with unfamiliar noises around me. As insight gradually dawns, the story becomes a more classical thriller with the evil people getting their just deserves. But the other world retains its reality for Piranesi, and others who have once been there. That world is real to them, just as those with psychoses live in a different reality. The House, however is a place of peace, gentleness and beauty, having a predictability about the tides, which for Piranesi is reassuring.The ending was rather abrupt, and he didn't get to say goodbye to Raphael properly...I would have liked another half chapter to finish it off.

It was helpful to me to already know about Piranesi the artist, but no one else at my book club had this knowledge and generally we all approached and appreciated this book in different ways. It is a book with depth not a frothy easy read.

A magical weird beautifully told tale. As you read you get lost in the vastness of the house in the beutiful detailed description of the statues in the meticulous journal notes and the in sound of the sea waves and birds. Loved it.

Decent plot which I can could see being made into a film.Too much time is wasted about the halls and there directions. Quite tedious by the end of it.

Make sure you have an open mind when you go into this one – you’re going to need it…😊With very few frames of reference (even the diary entries are labelled bizarrely – ‘Entry for the sixteenth day of the sixth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls’) the reader is given no time to work out which way is up before being launched into a strange world which feels part Narnia, part Atlantis, and with an added dose of ancient somewhere-or-other, maybe Rome...Having said that, whilst part of me was asking for a roadmap and a torch, another part of me had the distinct feeling that I did (or should) know ‘where’ I was, if only I could put my finger on it. Seemingly random references to things like ‘Batter-Sea’ only aided to heighten that impression.I had no idea who Piranesi was before I opened this novel and determined not to look him up until I had finished – I wanted to enjoy the slightly surreal ride first. And this novel isn’t about him – his name is borrowed for its slightly cruel relevance to the situation the main character finds himself in.I can’t go into the plot without giving away massive spoilers, but suffice to say it kind of went in the direction I thought it might and even then I didn’t understand it fully. There are no neatly tied bows at its conclusion, rather you find you are left instead with a series of questions which follow you about and creep up on you in the dark.A classic in the making? Maybe. The writing is beautiful, and the story has a mystical, haunting quality to it. Can I see why it won the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021? There is a simple answer to that – yes.

I came across the authors first book and loved it. When I saw her second book, I had to read it. And I was not disappointed, a very different story to her previous book. I will not try to describe the book, other than to say. You just have to read this wonderful book. The author writes with such skill and confidence. No sentence or word is wasted. You find yourself reading slowly and carefully. But at the same time, you are lost in the story. Before you know it, you will have read whole chapters before you look up again. Trust me, I eagerly await her third book.

A very captivating story, I couldn’t put it down! The writing is outstanding.

Me encantó esta edición en inglés, una gran compra; la edición en español es muy sencilla de pasta blanda y buscaba algo así de bello, llegó rapidísimo a México en buenas condiciones.

A story of lost identity, infinite halls and unending curiosity. One of the few stories I could not put down

It really does justice to its reputation

Le hardback est magnifique. Attention, l'autocollant ne s'enlève pas pour celles et ceux que ça dérange