Most Popular Books by Pat Barker

Winner of the 1995 Booker Prize Set in the closing months of World War I, this towering novel combines poetic intensity with gritty realism as it brings Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy to its stunning conclusion. In France, millions of men engaged in brutal trench warfare are all “ghosts in the making.” In England, psychologist William Rivers, with severe pangs of conscience, treats the mental casualties of the war to make them whole enough to fight again. One of these, Billy Prior, risen to the officer class from the working class, both courageous and sardonic, decides to return to France with his fellow officer, poet Wilfred Owen, to fight a war he no longer believes in. Meanwhile, Rivers, enfevered by influenza returns in memory to his experience studying a South Pacific tribe whose ethos amounted to a culture of death. Across the gulf between his society and theirs, Rivers begins to form connections that cast new light on his—and our—understanding of war.

A Washington Post Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Economist, Financial Times Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award Finalist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction Here is the story of the Iliad as we’ve never heard it before: in the words of Briseis, Trojan queen and captive of Achilles. Given only a few words in Homer’s epic and largely erased by history, she is nonetheless a pivotal figure in the Trojan War. In these pages she comes fully to life: wry, watchful, forging connections among her fellow female prisoners even as she is caught between Greece’s two most powerful warriors. Her story pulls back the veil on the thousands of women who lived behind the scenes of the Greek army camp—concubines, nurses, prostitutes, the women who lay out the dead—as gods and mortals spar, and as a legendary war hurtles toward its inevitable conclusion. Brilliantly written, filled with moments of terror and beauty, The Silence of the Girls gives voice to an extraordinary woman—and makes an ancient story new again.

A daring and timely feminist retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of the women of Troy who endured it—an extraordinary follow up to The Silence of the Girls from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy and “one of contemporary literature’s most thoughtful and compelling writers" (The Washington Post). Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war—including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean. It does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester. Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles''s slave, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam''s aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.

In a World War I British military hospital, a pacifist soldier and his doctor grapple with the outrage of war. By the author of Union Street. Reprint.

Twelve-year-old Colin Harper weaves together movies and real life in an attempt to create an understanding of what his father was like and what it means to be a man.

The basis for the major motion picture The Drowning from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy and The Silence of the Girls. Out walking with his wife, Lauren, beside the River Tyne, Tom Seymour instinctively risks his life to save a young man who they happen to notice just before he jumps into the icy current. Tom''s spontaneous act saves the life of someone whose past, as well as his future, he feels a sense of responsibility towards. Recently released from prison, and living under an assumed name, Danny Miller was tried for murder as a ten-year-old on the basis of Tom''s testimony, and assessment of him as a psychologist and an expert witness. When Danny asks Tom to help him sort out his life—beginning with his past—Tom is drawn into a lonely, soul-searching reinvestigation of the child murderer''s case. "Exhilarating moral exploration, and prose as naked and jolting as an unwrapped live wire." —Richard Eder, The New York Times Book Review "It''s her canny feel for the psyche''s ambiguous meanderings, more than plot twists, that generates most of the thrills . . . This author creates an atmosphere of menace worthy of a Joyce Carol Oates." —Dan Cryer, Newsday "Barker soars to new heights with this harrowing, contemporary study of fate tainted by the stench of evil." —Robert Allen Papinchak, USA Today "Barker creates a sense of menace worthy of Ian McEwan . . . Border Crossing is replete with sharp, expressive exchanges, hard poetry, and as many enigmas as implacable truths." —Kerry Field, The Atlantic Monthly

''Blow Your House Down is swift, spare and utterly absorbing - you''ll probably read it, as I did, in one tense sitting'' NEW YORK TIMES ''A courageous and disturbing novel'' ELIZABETH WARD, WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD ''Despite its black humour, it is a deeply political book'' BELINDA WEBB, GUARDIAN A serial killer stalks prostitutes with profound and unexpected consequences in this riveting novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Ghost Road. A city and its people are in the grip of a killer who is roaming the northern city, singling out prostitutes. The face of his latest victim stares out from every newspaper and billboard, haunting the women who walk the streets. But life and work go on. Brenda, with three children, can''t afford to give up while Audrey, now in her forties, desperately goes on ''working the cars''. And then, when another woman is savagely murdered, Jean, her lover, takes desperate measures . . .

From Booker Prize winner Pat Barker, a masterful novel that portrays the staggering human cost of the Great War. Admirers of her Regeneration Trilogy as well as fans of Downton Abbey and War Horse will be enthralled. With Toby’s Room, a sequel to her widely praised previous novel Life Class, the incomparable Pat Barker confirms her place in the pantheon of Britain’s finest novelists. This indelible portrait of a family torn apart by war focuses on Toby Brooke, a medical student, and his younger sister Elinor. Enmeshed in a web of complicated family relationships, Elinor and Toby are close: some might say too close. But when World War I begins, Toby is posted to the front as a medical officer while Elinor stays in London to continue her fine art studies at the Slade, under the tutelage of Professor Henry Tonks. There, in a startling development based in actual fact, Elinor finds that her drafting skills are deployed to aid in the literal reconstruction of those maimed in combat. One day in 1917, Elinor has a sudden premonition that Toby will not return from France. Three weeks later the family receives a telegram informing them that Toby is “Missing, Believed Killed” in Ypres. However, there is no body, and Elinor refuses to accept the official explanation. Then she finds a letter hidden in the lining of Toby’s uniform; Toby knew he wasn’t coming back, and he implies that fellow soldier Kit Neville will know why. Toby’s Room is an eloquent literary narrative of hardship and resilience, love and betrayal, and anguish and redemption. In unflinching yet elegant prose, Pat Barker captures the enormity of the war’s impact—not only on soldiers at the front but on the loved ones they leave behind.

''Vivid, bawdy and bitter'' THE TIMES ''A first-rate first novel . . . pungent, raunchy dialogue . . . passages of fine understated wit'' IVAN GOLD, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Pat Barker''s first novel shows the women of Union Street, young and old, meeting the harsh challeges of poverty and survival in a precarious world. There''s Kelly, at eleven, neglected and independent, dealing with a squalid rape; Dinah, knocking on sixty and still on the game; Joanne, not yet twenty, not yet married and already pregnant. Old Alice is welcoming her impending death whilst Muriel helplessly watches the decline of her stoical husband. And linking them all, watching over them all, mother to half the street, is fiery, indomitable Iris.

In the spring of 1914, a group of students at the Slade School of Art have gathered for a life-drawing class. Paul Tarrant is easily distracted by an intriguing fellow student, Elinor Brooke, but watches from afar when a well-known painter catches her eye. After World War I begins, Paul tends to the dying soldiers from the front line as a Belgian Red Cross volunteer, but the longer he remains, the greater the distance between him and home becomes. By the time he returns, Paul must confront not only the overwhelming, perhaps impossible challenge of how to express all that he has seen and experienced, but also the fact that life, and love, will never be the same for him again.

Di jantung perang Troya, ada suara perempuan yang selama ini dibungkamÉ hingga sekarang. Briseis adalah ratu Lyrnessus hingga suatu hari kotanya diluluhlantakkan oleh pasukan Yunani. Kini ia menjadi budak Achilles, pria yang telah membunuh suami dan saudarasaudara lelakinya. Dongeng klasik Iliad dikisahkan kembali dari sudut pandang Briseis, yang hanya sedikit disebut-sebut meskipun perannya sangat menentukan. Dalam Perempuan-Perempuan Kelu, Brises mekar, hidup, menjadi sosok yang nyata: pengamatannya tajam, kepedihannya dipendam, dan ia menjalin hubungan dengan para budak perempuan lain yang menjadi pelacur, perawat, petugas yang memandikan mayat, dan kurban darah. Kisahnya mengungkap apa yang selama ini tidak tampak atau tidak dianggap penting dalam kisah kepahlawanan Iliad, memberi kan suara kepada seorang perempuan luar biasaÑmemberi kita cara pandang baru dalam membaca kisah kuno ini. Novel ini menjadi finalis WomenÕs Prize for Fiction

The Booker Prize-winning modern classic of contemporary war fiction from the Women''s Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the Girls Recommended by Richard Osman ''One of the few real masterpieces of late twentieth-century British fiction'' Jonathan Coe ''Original, delicate and unforgettable'' Independent ''A new vision of what the First World War did to human beings, male and female, soldiers and civilians. Constantly surprising and formally superb'' A. S. Byatt, Daily Telegraph 1917, Scotland. At Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland, army psychiatrist William Rivers treats shell-shocked soldiers before sending them back to the front. In his care are poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, and Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by means of pencil and paper. . . Regeneration, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road follow the stories of these men until the last months of the war. Widely acclaimed and admired, Pat Barker''s Regeneration trilogy paints with moving detail the far-reaching consequences of a conflict which decimated a generation. The Regeneration trilogy: Regeneration The Eye in the Door The Ghost Road

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy comes the powerful third installment to the Women of Troy series. In The Voyage Home, Pat Barker skillfully reimagines Greek mythology, chronicling a perilous journey undertaken by the enslaved healer Ritsa and her cruel mistress Cassandra. AN INSTANT UK BESTSELLER “Barker’s vision of a world shaped by violence, a key theme in all her fiction, is equal to the tragic grandeur of ancient myth....More brilliant work from one of world literature’s greatest writers.” —Kirkus Reviews *starred review* I never saw Cassandra as a victim. I saw a woman as focused on a single aim as any raptor stooping to its prey; but then, I had more opportunities to observe her ruthlessness than most. I was in her power, you see. I was her slave. Pat Barker has crafted the latest in a brilliant reimagining of Greek mythology, and The Voyage Home is the work of a writer at the height of her powers. In this third outing, she follows the young Ritsa and the unpredictable Cassandra on their perilous return journey to Mycenae. Cassandra has acquired the powers of prophecy from the kiss of Apollo, but the very same god has taken away the people’s belief in her abilities. Though she warns of the carnage that awaits the Greek warrior king Agamemnon—who numbs himself with alcohol on the storm-plagued trip home—her shipmates disregard her. While Cassandra’s prophecies fall on deaf ears, Ritsa instead remains focused on surviving once they make land. When a mysterious young girl begins to shadow them, and Agamemnon’s cruelty takes a new turn, Ritsa must find a safe place for Cassandra, whose mood alternates between cruelty and frenzy. But it’s the ongoing ire between Queen Clytemnestra and Agamemnon that could prove fatal for everyone. In The Voyage Home, Barker elevates myth and legend and asks us to examine the stories we hold dear through a feminist lens, and in doing so she has crafted a tale that upholds her legacy as one of our finest contemporary novelists.

Double Vision is Pat Barker''s thought-provoking Booker Prize-winning novel of modern warfare. Provocative, intense and deeply moving, Double Vision is a powerful story of one man''s quest to find redemption amidst the horror of twenty-first-century war. Returning to Afghanistan after his photographer friend is killed by a sniper, war reporter Stephen Sharkey seeks release from his nightmares in an England seemingly at peace with itself. Questioning man''s inhumanity to man both abroad and at home, and whether love really can be the great redeemer, Double Vision is a searing novel of conflict in modern times. ''Full of brooding tension. Barker is one of our most significant contemporary novelists'' Daily Telegraph ''Barker writes superbly. The reader is drawn on, from page to page'' Economist ''Barker has a quite extraordinary ability to combine complexity and clarity and to make both seem parts of the same whole'' Sunday Times ''The characters grab hold at the beginning and never loosen their grip. Barker holds us by the sheer beauty of her writing'' Financial Times Pat Barker was born in 1943. Her books include the highly acclaimed Regeneration trilogy, comprising Regeneration, which has been filmed, The Eye in the Door, which won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and The Ghost Road, which won the Booker Prize. The trilogy featured the Observer''s 2012 list of the ten best historical novels. She is also the author of the more recent novels Another World, Border Crossing, Double Vision, Life Class, and Toby''s Room. She lives in Durham.

A new novel from the Booker Prize winning Pat Barker, author of the Regeneration Trilogy, that unforgettably portrays London during the Blitz (her first portrayal of World War II) and reconfirms her place in the very top rank of British novelists. 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 Tarrant works as an air-raide 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 reach out for quick consolation. And into their midst comes the spirit medium Bertha Mason, grotesque and unforgettable, whose ability to make contact with the deceased finds vastly increased demands as death rains down from the skies. Old loves and obsessions resurface 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 Class and continued with Toby''s Room, Noonday is 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.

England is suffering shortages, grey bread and meagre clothes. In the climate of exhaustion and hysteria, the war nears its close and pressures fall into line, become fierce and take ugly forms.