Barney Norris – författare

''There exists in all of us a song waiting to be sung which is as heart-stopping and vertiginous as the peak of the cathedral. That is the meaning of this quiet city, where the spire soars into the blue, where rivers and stories weave into one another, where lives intertwine.''One quiet evening in Salisbury, the peace is shattered by a serious car crash. At that moment, five lives collide – a flower seller, a schoolboy, an army wife, a security guard, a widower – all facing their own personal disasters. As one of those lives hangs in the balance, the stories of all five unwind, drawn together by connection and coincidence into a web of love, grief, disenchantment and hope that perfectly represents the joys and tragedies of small town life.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Turning for Home by Barney Norris, read by Eleanor Wyld, Paul Hickey and Timothy West.''Isn’t the life of any person made up out of the telling of two tales, after all? People live in the space between the realities of their lives and the hopes they have for them. The whole world makes more sense if you remember that everyone has two lives, their real lives and their dreams, both stories only a tape’s breadth apart from each other, impossibly divided, indivisibly close.''Every year, Robert''s family come together at a rambling old house to celebrate his birthday. Aunts, uncles, distant cousins - it has been a milestone in their lives for decades. But this year Robert doesn''t want to be reminded of what has happened since they last met - and neither, for quite different reasons, does his granddaughter Kate. Neither of them is sure they can face the party. But for both Robert and Kate, it may become the most important gathering of all.As lyrical and true to life as Norris''s critically acclaimed debut Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain, which won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, this is a compelling, emotional story of family, human frailty, and the marks that love leaves on us.''One of our most exciting young writers'' - The Times''Norris writes beautifully, unearthing extraordinary depths in the everyday... a memorable writer, mature beyond his years.'' - Sunday Times''Norris has a gift for tapping in to ordinary lives and finding the extraordinary in them'' - Daily Mail

Brought to you by Penguin.''Shot through with compassion . . . this dreamlike, winding tale is a joy.'' A. L. KENNEDY This was how I heard the most important story of my life, the thing that decided me, the story that determined who I was in the end.At a hotel bar in a quiet English town, two strangers meet by chance and share their stories. Hers is of an inconspicuous life, shaken by heartbreak and scattered with unfulfilled dreams. His is a dizzying tale of an unending quest for someone he lost in his youth.From the blustery cliffs of Dover to the confines of a dark prison cell; from the courtroom witness box to the West End stage, we join him as he slips through time.Extraordinary though his story is, what she has to reveal is even more surprising, and will take them to a place neither of them – or you – expected.From the bestselling author of FIVE RIVERS MET ON A WOODED PLAIN comes this captivating novel about love, abandonment, and the power of stories to help us find meaning in a confusing world – a world that can sometimes threaten to overwhelm us, but one that is rich with possibility, and always full of wonder.