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The See-Through House
- Author
- Shelley Klein
- Narrator
- Shelley Klein
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 23 April 2020
- Run Time
- 8 hours 48 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
Shelley Klein grew up in the Scottish Borders, in a house designed on a modernist open-plan grid; with colourful glass panels set against a forest of trees, it was like living in a work of art.
Shelley’s father, Bernat Klein, was a textile designer whose pioneering colours and textures were a major contribution to 1960s and 70s style. As a child, Shelley and her siblings adored both the house and the fashion shows that took place there, but as she grew older Shelley also began to rebel against her father’s excessive design principles.
Thirty years on, Shelley moves back home to care for her father, now in his eighties: the house has not changed and neither has his uncompromising vision. As Shelley installs her pots of herbs on the kitchen windowsill, he insists she take them into her bedroom to ensure they don’t ‘spoil the line of the house’.
Threaded through Shelley’s book is her father’s own story: an Orthodox Jewish childhood in Yugoslavia; his rejection of rabbinical studies to pursue a life of art; his arrival in post-war Britain and his imagining of a house filled with light and colour as interpreted by the architect Peter Womersley.
A book about the search for belonging and the pain of letting go, The See-Through House is a moving memoir of one man's distinctive way of looking at the world, told with tenderness and humour and a daughter’s love.
© Shelley Klein 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020
Critics Review
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A sad, funny, utterly fascinating book about families, home and how to say goodbye
Mark Haddon
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[A] finespun, magical new grief memoir... a beautifully structured book... Klein is a witty observer, even in the case of her own sorrow, which she rifles through and puzzles over with wry candour. Desolation and humour are expertly balanced throughout... I suppose it is strange that grief should produce such a life-affirming book, but it has. Read it for the solace it contains, or for its captivating descriptions. Either way, it's a delight.
The Telegraph
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A luminous book, full of light and colour, and a remarkable reflection on childhood and untold stories
Edmund de Waal
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Original, moving and bracingly honest... often hilarious... Each room has particular memories for Klein. And her journey through them is also a psychological quest, an attempt to understand how the house shaped her personality and whether she can ever get free of her attachment
Guardian
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Enthralling... a fascinating exploration of the influence of a domestic setting on mind and spirit, as well as of a fraught father-daughter relationship
The Times
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In this remarkable, moving tribute to a house and a father, Shelley Klein taps in to three universal emotions: our lifelong bond to the house we grew up in; our sense that our childhood home and our parents are intertwined; and our feelings of profound bereftness at saying goodbye to both parents and house ... beautifully illustrated ... Deeply affectionate
Daily Mail
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A charming account of a daughter, a house and a fastidious dad: Secrecy is not a trait found in Klein's writing, which is at times disarmingly honest. Her openness pays off - we get a full and nuanced portrait of her life and all those in it
The Sunday Times
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A moving study in grief
Mail on Sunday
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An honest, piercing account of love, death and everything in between... there is an undercurrent which makes this book special. It weaves the complexity of relationships and family into its pages. At its most compelling, it tackles psychodynamics, addressing the influence of earlier encounters and memories on future behaviour and emotions... A poignant homage to her father’s legacy
Evening Standard
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The See-Through House is part of a lineage of central European history filtered through its buildings... In its curious mix of chicken soup Jewishness and Swinging Sixties creativity it also creates a very vivid picture of a minimal modernism almost overloaded with meaning
Financial Times
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Shelley Klein
- Narrator
- Shelley Klein
- Duration
- 8 hours 48 minutes
- Release Date
- 23 April 2020
- ISBN
- 9781473583191
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Memoirs, Individual architects and architectural firms, Architecture: residential and domestic buildings, Local and family history, nostalgia, Coping with / advice about death and bereavement
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.Shelley Klein grew up in the Scottish Borders, in a house designed on a modernist open-plan grid; with colourful glass panels set against a forest of trees, it was like living in a work of art.Shelley’s father, Bernat Klein, was a textile designer whose pioneering colours and textures were a major contribution to 1960s and 70s style. As a child, Shelley and her siblings adored both the house and the fashion shows that took place there, but as she grew older Shelley also began to rebel against her father’s excessive design principles. Thirty years on, Shelley moves back home to care for her father, now in his eighties: the house has not changed and neither has his uncompromising vision. As Shelley installs her pots of herbs on the kitchen windowsill, he insists she take them into her bedroom to ensure they don’t ‘spoil the line of the house’.Threaded through Shelley’s book is her father’s own story: an Orthodox Jewish childhood in Yugoslavia; his rejection of rabbinical studies to pursue a life of art; his arrival in post-war Britain and his imagining of a house filled with light and colour as interpreted by the architect Peter Womersley.A book about the search for belonging and the pain of letting go, The See-Through House is a moving memoir of one man's distinctive way of looking at the world, told with tenderness and humour and a daughter’s love.© Shelley Klein 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020
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