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Ash before Oak

By Jeremy Cooper
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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Ash before Oak is a fictional journal detailing the life of a solitary man on a remote Somerset estate. While it reads as a nature diary chronicling local flora, fauna, and seasonal changes, the narrative also subtly explores the narrator's mental breakdown and eventual recovery through his renewed connection with the natural world.

Jeremy Cooper's first novel in over ten years, this work won the 2018 Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize and is celebrated for its precise and beautiful prose. It offers a moving and thoughtful meditation on the fragility and wonder of life.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This novel will appeal to readers who appreciate literary fiction that combines elements of nature writing and introspective storytelling. Ideal for those interested in psychological themes and evocative descriptions of the English countryside.

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The winner of the inaugural Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize, Ash Before Oak is a novel in the form of a fictional journal written by a solitary man on a secluded Somerset estate.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Ash before Oak is a novel in the form of a fictional journal written by a solitary man on a secluded Somerset estate. Ostensibly a nature diary, chronicling the narrator's interest in the local flora and fauna and the passing of the seasons, Ash before Oak is also the story of a breakdown told slantwise, and of the narrator's subsequent recovery through his reengagement with the world around him.

Written in prose that is as precise as it is beautiful, winner of the 2018 Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize, Jeremy Cooper's first novel in over a decade is a stunning investigation of the fragility, beauty and strangeness of life.

"Very moving, beautiful and so thoughtful too - a wonderful evocation of animals and birds, sky and Somerset." - Kate Mosse

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781910695890

Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 17 April 2019

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Fitzcarraldo Editions

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 125.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 300g

Pages: 536

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About the Author

Jeremy Cooper is a writer and art historian, author of five previous novels and several works of non-fiction, including the standard work on nineteenth century furniture, studies of young British artists in the 1990s, and, in 2019, the British Museum's catalogue of artists' postcards. Early on he appeared in the first twenty-four of BBC's Antiques Roadshow and, in 2018, won the first Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize for Ash before Oak.

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