At the Table: a Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year

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People just do shitty things because they're people, and I never really disliked anyone in this book despite the many mistakes most of them make. But as the siblings grapple with the pressures of thirtysomething life, their parents struggle to protect the fragile facade of their own relationship, and the secrets they’ve both been keeping. The quantum physicist and BBC presenter invites readers to adopt a scientific approach to modern living. But as the siblings grapple with the pressures of thirtysomething life, their parents struggle to protect the fragile façade of their own relationship, and the secrets they've both been keeping. The lives of Rafiq’s three children becoming increasingly dependent on their relationship to money:Siver, the only daughter, escapes into an unhappy marriage in Baghdad before fleeing to raise her daughter as a single mother in Dubai.

Nicole jest skupioną na karierze singielką, która również zaczyna zastanawiać się nad wyborami, których dokonała. The kind of rare story you want to nosedive into on a hot hungover weekend and slurp down like iced coffee - cold, sweet and quenching. What sets At the Table apart is Powell's acute understanding not just of how we interact in the modern world.Cała sytuacja mocno odbija się na każdym członku rodziny, a do tego dochodzą jeszcze ich własne problemy.

Nicole starts to revisit in her mind an old relationship that ended badly, and begins to rely on alcohol more and more to get through the day. This is such a real portrayal of family life, warts and all, that it took my breath away with its accuracy.

The subtle observations described in such intricate detail mean that this is a fly on the wall story like no other.

Like her father, she can hear the thoughts of the recently deceased and give voice to their final wishes and desires.For a novel that has virtually no plot, the characters should have been the focal point of the narrative; instead they were one-dimensional, unsympathetic, and just plain boring. Also the descriptions of the ingredients in the meals didn’t always add anything- just tedious padding. She’s on a permanent quest to find the right man, remaining furiously unsuccessful while her friends settle down around her. Any reader will recognise the behaviours and may also have experienced the family dramas themselves.

Each chapter has a meal (or drink, lots of drinks) and Claire Powell's writing and characters are funny and heartbreaking and moreish. A gripping yet tender depiction of family dynamics, love and disillusionment, At the Table is about what it means to grow up – both as an individual, and as a family. We follow each of the equally flawed characters over the course of the year after the announcement and see how it affects them all. A character explicitly tells one of the protagonists that he’s about to show her a video of his kid. Set over the course of one year, “At The Table” tells the story of the Maguire family, parents Gerry and Linda and their adult children Nicole and Jamie.This British take on the subject has moments of being savvy in family dynamics but far more moments of disliking most of the family, most of the time. In the interactions between the family members, Claire Powell has a way of showing how adults revert to childhood behaviour - acting out a role with other family members that they may have been performing for years (perhaps lacking the ability and self belief to move on? I liked reading all the interactions between Jamie and Nicole and the way that they functioned as siblings. Photograph: Martina Bocchio/Awakening/Alamy View image in fullscreen Jim al-Khalili: ‘engaging and illuminating’.