Next to Nature, Art

Nov 24, 2025 6:50 AM

Author:Penelope Lively

Next to Nature, Art

Next to Nature, Artis the fourth novel by Booker Prize winning author Penelope Lively.

Run by Toby and Paula, the centre offers ordinary people a chance to learn from professional artists skilled in poetry, sculpture, ceramics, and the like. Artists like Greg, the New England poet, whose works are strangely absent; or Bob the lascivious potter who sells his Toby jugs to department stores. As the latest group of students arrives, tensions begin to run high and artistic temperaments are much on display. In fact much more is learnt about expressing oneself than was ever suggested on the prospectus.

'Delightful . . . complex and exquisite. Penelope Lively's prose is beautiful and spare and she is a master of understatement' Daily Telegraph

'Her economy and wit are apparent on every page . . . it all leads to a splendid climax . . . wonderful, sensible, funny Penelope Lively' Evening Standard

Reviews

A valuable and brave book... reliably thoughtful and properly controversial. Furthermore, its devotion is always to poetry, not to personality

—— Andrew Motion

Readers who delight in the sheer diversity of 20th century poetry in English are richly catered for

—— Spectator

Michael Schmidt is eminently well-suited to take the measure of the changes and vicissitudes that brought poetry to its current modern character

—— Independent on Sunday

Schmidt is no despiser of popular taste for all his declared modernism, his agenda is elastic and inclusive... I can imagine teaching out of this rich, warm, generous collection for years, without getting bored, limited, or enraged with its editor

—— Times Educational Supplement

It is hard to see who could have done the job better than Schmidt

—— Times Literary Supplement

Schmidt gives us a chance to settle down with poets we wish we had known better

—— Daily Telegraph

A satisfying selection that reminds us that Lawrence didn't just write about animals, Betjeman wasn't always jolly, and Plath is more interesting for her collapsed perspectives than for her self-exposure

—— New Statesman

The selections from the greats are generous and well chosen

—— Guardian

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