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Hearing Secret Harmonies
Hearing Secret Harmonies
Nov 14, 2025 2:58 PM

Author:Anthony Powell

Hearing Secret Harmonies

'He is, as Proust was before him, the great literary chronicler of his culture in his time.' GUARDIAN

'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Reissued now in this definitive edition, it stands ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers.

In this final volume of Anthony Powell’s ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’, the sixties are in full swing and Nick Jenkins and his wife Isobel are living out their later years in the countryside. Not content with a quiet retirement, Nick’s old school friend Widmerpool is on the rise again and is appointed chancellor of a new university. But while Nick and his contemporaries are settling in to a slower pace of life, the rise of sixties counterculture signals a new generation pushing its way to the front. And as the Dance draws to a close, a wedding brings together old faces one last time.

Reviews

One of the great novel-sequences in English Literature – a wonderful portrait of society, full of insight into the complexities of human behaviour, richly detailed and shrewdly funny.

—— William Boyd

Discovering Anthony Powell’s "A Dance to the Music of Time" has been one of the greatest pleasures of my reading life. The cool elegance of the prose, the deliciously dry humour, the confident choreography of his characters made for an incomparable treat. Twelve volumes was simply not enough.

—— Michael Palin

“A Dance To The Music of Time” is an epic, elegant masterpiece, so full of lightness and comedy that you're unprepared for how it quietly wrecks your heart.

—— Lauren Groff

Powell’s novel sequence is at once a rich chronicle of 20th-century English social life and an intricately wrought work of art. It is also extremely funny, in its sly fashion.

—— John Banville

The novels of Powell’s “A Dance to the Music of Time” themselves move hand in hand in intricate measure through the last century, bearing wisdom and understanding for the present. In an ever-quicker, ever-shallower world, his steadiness and wit reliably escort the reader into depth and patience. Nobody gives pattern to the spectacle of human existence like Powell.

—— Louisa Young

Reading “A Dance to the Music of Time” was such a joyous experience, I remember wishing there'd been more than twelve volumes.

—— Roddy Doyle

He has wit, style, and panache, in a world where those qualities are in permanently short supply

—— The New York Review of Books

I re-read the "Dance" every five years or so and always find something new – the world has changed but the characters are evergreen. Everybody has a Widmerpool in their life.

—— Daisy Goodwin

[A] comic masterpiece

—— Irish Times

A masterful stylist and a wise, often hilarious observer of human nature and his times, Anthony Powell is an under-appreciated literary gem. The pleasures and dramas of the "Dance" continue to illuminate daily life.

—— Claire Messud

Comic, satisfying, thought-provoking, addictive

—— The Telegraph

It's his supreme skill in mastering a lengthily interwoven chronicle, the evolution of such a range and variety of pin-point characters, the wit and the cultural ambition that give the novel a unique place in English Literature.

—— Melvyn Bragg

THE HAZEL WOOD KEPT ME UP ALL NIGHT . . . as I fell completely into the dark and beautiful world within its pages. Terrifying, magical, and surprisingly funny, it's one of the very best books I've read in years

—— Jennifer Niven, bestselling author of All the Bright Places

A WINDING, CREEPY, INSIDIOUSLY DELICIOUS NOVEL. UTTERLY SPECTACULAR - I read it in one sitting

—— Melinda Salisbury, bestselling author of The Sin Eater’s Daughter

THIS BOOK WILL BE YOUR NEXT OBSESSION. Welcome to the Hazel Wood, where bad luck is a living thing, princesses are doomed, and every page contains a wondrously terrible adventure - it's not safe inside these pages, but once you enter, you may never want to leave.

—— Stephanie Garber, Bestselling Author of Caraval

Katz's debut is one that will have readers gripped from the very first words until the last - and a book that will stay with you for a long while afterwards.

—— Her.ie

[A] smart debut, both compelling and disturbing, delivered with the kind of confidence that makes me keen to see what Katz will come up with next.

—— A Life in Books Blog

[G]ripping debut … Here’s a page-turner you’ll devour before the week is out

—— Stylist Daily Newsletter

A razor sharp psychological deconstruction of the motivations, regrets and secrets behind a picture-perfect façade.

—— The Week

White-knuckle ride

—— RTE Guide

I really wanted to just press the book into anyone’s hands and say ‘please read this’! [...] An important read

—— Bookish Chat

Readers hungry for an in-depth study of a man searching for control, power and ownership will find satisfaction in A Good Man. But caveat emptor - this story inevitably hurtles at the end towards a chilling finale

—— Crime Review

This stellar debut from Ani Katz had us gripped from the beginning.

—— That’s Life!
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