Behind The Scenes At The Museum

Kate Atkinson's brilliant and unforgettable first novel; which won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year Prize. 'Delivers its jokes and its tragedies as efficiently as Dickens...outrageously funny...will dazzle readers for years to come' - HILARY MANTEL; author of The Mirror and the Light Ruby Lennox was conceived grudgingly by Bunty and born while her father; George; was in the Dog and Hare in Doncaster telling a woman in an emerald dress and a D-cup that he wasn't married. Bunty had never wanted to marry George; but here she was; stuck in a flat above the pet shop in an ancient street beneath York Minster; with sensible and sardonic Patrica aged five; greedy cross-patch Gillian who refused to be ignored; and Ruby... Ruby tells the story of The Family; from the day at the end of the nineteenth century when a travelling French photographer catches frail beautiful Alice and her children; like flowers in amber; to the startling; witty; and memorable events of Ruby's own life. 'Little short of a masterpiece...Fizzing with wit and energy; Kate Atkinson's hilarious novel made me laugh and cry' Daily Mail 'An astounding book...without doubt one of the finest novels I have read for years' THE TIMES