Still Life by Sarah Winman is an undeniably pretty story, predominantly set in Florence, and focused around themes of art, love and luck.

The book has had tonnes of reviews, so I won’t recount the plot – all you need to know is that the story stretches from post-WWII to the seventies, and tracks the interwoven lives of a number of characters (including a blue and yellow Macaw named Claude).

Winman plays with perspective – simply in terms of individual characters; nuanced if you take the idea of the title and think about how we all see a fixed object in a different way, our history and experiences giving context; and lastly at a meta-level, with her riff on Forster’s A Room with a View. Continue reading →