Cover of Noonday

Noonday

Life Class seriesbook 3 of 3

In Noonday, Pat Barker - the Man Booker-winning author of the definitive WWI trilogy, Regeneration - turns for the first time to WWII.

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London, the Blitz, autumn 1940. As the bombs fall on the blacked-out city, ambulance driver Elinor Brooke races from bomb sites to hospitals trying to save the lives of injured survivors, working alongside former friend Kit Neville, while her husband Paul works as an air-raid warden. Once fellow students at the Slade School of Fine Art, before the First World War destroyed the hopes of their generation, they now find themselves caught in another war, this time at home. As the bombing intensifies, the constant risk of death makes all three of them reach out for quick consolation. Old loves and obsessions re-surface until Elinor is brought face to face with an almost impossible choice.

Completing the story of Elinor Brooke, Paul Tarrant and Kit Neville, begun with Life Classand continued with Toby's Room, Noondayis both a stand-alone novel and the climax of a trilogy. Writing about the Second World War for the first time, Pat Barker brings the besieged and haunted city of London into electrifying life in her most powerful novel since the Regeneration trilogy.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 261 pages

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These suit anyone who liked Noonday. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The English Agent Shares historical fiction, war, fiction
  2. The Report Shares historical fiction, fiction, World War II
  3. The Farm at the Edge of the World Shares historical fiction, fiction, World War II
  4. Their Finest Hour and a Half Shares historical fiction, World War II, fiction

“People who read Noonday tend to reach for these next.”

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  4. How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War

“If you want more of the same (historical fiction about art), start with these.”

  1. Ambulance Girls
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  4. Nourishment

“If it was the war that hooked you, try one of these.”

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  4. The Innocents Within: A Novel

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

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