I’ll be buying a copy of this book–but I’m going to try to find a copy with a better looking cover. A woman reflects on her Bohemian life and is in conflict with her adult children after finding a valuable painting of her fathers. This is one of those books I could see myself reading over and over throughout my life, and identifying with different characters each time.

It’s beautifully written, with richly drawn characters and evocative descriptions. The book moves back and forth through time, as each chapter highlights someone important in Penelope’s life. Her father’s works are getting renewed attention from the art world, and two of her children are pressuring her to sell the paintings she owns, including The Shell Seekers. When the book opens, Penelope is 64 and recovering from a heart attack. It’s about Penelope Keeling, who grew up in Cornwall in the early 1900s, the daughter of a famous artist (who painted the titular Shell Seekers). It’s one of those books that is hard to describe the plot. When I was little I thought the title was so odd, and the cover so ugly, but I always remembered it.Īll these years later, when I saw the White Whale category on this year’s Bingo, I immediately thought of The Shell Seekers and requested it from the library.

The Shell Seekers, in all its 80s floral and embossed glory, was one of the books that was kept in this room, and one I always remember seeing it as I was dusting, but I never opened it or read the inside cover. One of my chores as a child was to dust this room. It was wider than a normal hallway, and lined with bookshelves that were filled with both books and pictures. When I was a kid, our house had a hallway that ran between the living room and my parents’ bedroom.

The shell seekers review