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Shy Creatures

From the author of bestselling sensation Small Pleasures
By Clare Chambers
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Check link for latest rating. ( 13,872 ratings, 1,557 reviews)
Brief Description
Shy Creatures confirms Clare Chambers as one of our most talented writers' GUARDIAN 'Like entering a modest bungalow and finding yourself in a cathedral' SUNDAY TIMES Croydon, 1964. Art therapist Helen Hansford is working in a psychiatric hospital, where she has been having a passionate but... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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From the author of bestselling sensation Small Pleasures comes a life-affirming exploration of love, loneliness and the quiet forces that shape our lives

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Shy Creatures confirms Clare Chambers as one of our most talented writers' GUARDIAN

'Like entering a modest bungalow and finding yourself in a cathedral' SUNDAY TIMES

Croydon, 1964. Art therapist Helen Hansford is working in a psychiatric hospital, where she has been having a passionate but precarious affair with her married colleague, the charismatic Dr Gil Rudden.

Helen's structured life is upended when William Tapping - a silent, thirty-seven-year-old man with a beard down to his waist - arrives at the hospital. As Helen helps William express himself through art, she becomes increasingly entangled in his mysterious past.

Inspired by a true story, Shy Creatures is a life-affirming exploration of loneliness, love and the quiet forces that shape our lives, reminding us that freedom can come in unexpected forms.

Beautiful, tender, moving. Clare Chambers is a genius' INDIA KNIGHT

'A warm, multi-layered mystery brimming with all the same nostalgia, wit and tenderness as Small Pleasures' i PAPER

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781399602563

Publisher: Orion Publishing Co

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 05 June 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 278g

Pages: 400

Collections

Best Sellers at Book Hero Clare Chambers Fiction General Fiction Historical Fiction In Stock Books In-Stock Fiction Books Literary Fiction New Release Fiction New Zealand's Best Selling Books The Great Clear Out Sale The Great Clear Out Sale: General Fiction

About the Author

Clare Chambers's first job after university was working for Diana Athill at Andre Deutsch. Her first novel Uncertain Terms was published in 1992 and she is the author of eight other novels.

Small Pleasures, her first work of fiction in ten years, became a word-of-mouth hit on publication, was selected for BBC 2 Between the Covers book club and for BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, and was selected as a Book of the Year by The Times, the Evening Standard, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, Metro, Red and Good Housekeeping. It also won Pageturner of the Year Award at the British Book Awards 2022 and was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2021.

Also by Clare Chambers

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  • Small Pleasures
    LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION A BBC 2 'BETWEEN THE COVERS' BOOK CLUB PICK 'Wonderful' RICHARD OSMAN 'Perfect' INDIA KNIGHT 'Beautiful' JESSIE BURTON 'Witty and sharp' DAVID NICHOLLS 1957, the suburbs of south east London. Jean Swinney is a journalist on a local paper, trapped in a life of duty and disappointment from which there is no likelihood...
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  • Shy Creatures
    'A magnificent novel. I loved it to its bones' EMMA STONEX 'Completely absorbing' LISSA EVANS 'A lively, funny, forgiving novel' PATRICK GALE 'A rich and tender story of kindness and compassion' RUTH HOGAN In all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen,...
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  • Small Pleasures
    Small Pleasures
    In the best tradition of Tessa Hadley, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ann Patchett — an astonishing, keenly observed period piece about an ordinary British woman in the 1950s whose dutiful life takes a sudden turn into a pitched battle between propriety and unexpected passion. "With wit and dry humour...quietly affecting in unexpected ways. Chambers' language is beautiful, achieving what only the...
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  • Intact
    A vital exploration of equality and the body from an acclaimed political philosopher. In this thought-provoking, original work, acclaimed political philosopher Clare Chambers argues that the unmodified body is a key political principle. While defending individuals' right to change their bodies, she argues that the social pressures to modify undermine equality. She shows how the connected ideas of the natural...
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