Republic Of Love, The

Description:
''The Republic of Love' marries a wide diversity of elements, mythical and modern, ironic and moving, exhilarating and melancholy!a love-surveying story that is enticingly seductive.' Times Literary Supplement ''The Republic of Love' is a hymn to the pleasures and pains, the raptures even of an unspectacular life. Fay discovers that happiness is 'a kind of by-product of existence, and not an end in itself'. This piece of knowledge saves her, Shields suggests, from the watery, ambiguous yearning of the mermaid, 'plaintive, coy', wordlessly calling out to no one. A simple message, but Shields delivers it with so much grace and so little pretension, that it is impossible not to be enchanted by her voice. She sings with the charm of a true siren. In her hands, we believe, anything can happen.' Guardian 'A novel that's so engrossing it makes you want to retire to a squashy sofa until you reach the end. Vividly fresh!glittering and spangled with fabulous surprises.' Sunday Times

Review:
'A novel that's so engrossing it makes you want to retire to a squashy sofa until you reach the end. Vividly fresh!glittering and spangled with fabulous surprises.' Sunday Times

Author Biography:
Carol Shields's novels include Larry's Party (1997) -- winner of the 1998 Orange Prize -- and The Stone Diaries (1993), winner of the Pulitzer Prize and short-listed for the Booker Prize. She has lived in Canada since 1957, and is the Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg.