PENELOPE LIVELY Spiderweb
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
PENGUIN BOOKS
SPIDERWEB
‘A wonderfully astute and quietly clever novel’ Kate Campbell,
‘I greatly enjoyed Penelope Lively’s
‘Her literary ancestors are novelists like Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Pym, whose ostensible subjects – domesticity, the rural community, virtue and patience – give way to visions of savage exoticism, sex and freedom’ Philip Hensher,
‘Seethes with contentious ideas’ Gillian Fairchild,
‘As in her earlier novel,
‘Penelope Lively on good form: a typical story of quiet, respectable people and their turbulent inner lives, delivered in quiet, respectable, yet occasionally devastating prose’ Gill Hornby,
‘Terrific’ Leslie Geddes-Brown,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Penelope Lively grew up in Egypt but settled in England after the war and took a degree in history at St Anne’s College, Oxford. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a member of PEN and the Society of Authors. She was married to the late Professor Jack Lively, has a daughter, a son and four grandchildren, and lives in London.
Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short-story collections for both adults and children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; once in 1977 for her first novel,
Penelope Lively has also written radio and television scripts and has acted as presenter for a BBC Radio 4 programme on children’s literature. She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award. She was appointed CBE in the 2001 New Year’s Honours list.
TITLES BY PENELOPE LIVELY IN PENGUIN
FICTION
Going Back
The Road to Lichfield
Treasures of Time
Judgement Day
Next to Nature, Art
Perfect Happiness
Corruption and Other Stories
According to Mark
Pack of Cards: Stories 1978-1986
Moon Tiger
Passing On
City of the Mind
Cleopatra’s Sister
Heat Wave