The same sea - Amos Oz

Here is a book in a magical category of one, a truly outstanding, resonant and original work, in a bold and daring new form, which breaks the mould of storytelling. It tells an intimate, everyday story of grief, love, attachment and loss through the voices of a fabulous range of characters - in some ways it recalls Under Milk Wood. Nadia Danon is dead, of cancer. Her widower, Albert, an accountant (who bears an odd resemblance to Amos), is trying to put his life back together. Her son has gone off to lose or find himself in Tibet. The son's girlfriend, a filmmaker, is back in Israel, making friendly, daughterly overtures to Albert - his response is less platonic. Meanwhile she has another lover and a rather repellent film producer also lusts after her. There are other wonderful characters. Theirs are the voices and the stories. It is beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, sexy, poetic, full of echoes and allusions, and yet with an astonishing immediacy and contemporaneity., and pure joy to read.