Pictures at an Exhibition

Nov 16, 2025 11:15 PM

Author:Camilla Macpherson,Penelope Freeman

'An enchanting debut' Woman's Own

November 1942

Dear Elizabeth,

I've got myself a new project, to cheer myself up a bit. It has absolutely nothing to do with the war effort. We're completely starved of art in London these days. Anything decent was stashed away by the authorities years ago.But the National Gallery is going to dust off one masterpiece each month, put it on display, and allow us masses to trail in front of it. I've promised myself solemnly that I will go along each month to see whichever painting it is that has been chosen, then write and tell you all about it. So, what do you think? It must be better than knitting socks for sailors or collecting old tin to turn into Spitfires.

Love Daisy

Reviews

Wonderful... Magical and outlandish

—— Daily Mail

A magnificently bewildering achievement... Brilliantly conceived, bold in its surreal scope, sexy and driven by a snappy plot... Exuberant storytelling

—— Independent on Sunday

Cool, fluent and addictive

—— Daily Telegraph

Hypnotic, spellbinding

—— The Times

Addictive... Exhilarating... A pleasure

—— Evening Standard

Murakami's most addictive fix to date

—— Independent

Engrossing and wildly inventive

—— Times Literary Supplement

Laden with philosophical overtones and enchanting wit

—— Observer

Murakami's exquisitely simple prose and deft evocation of the surreal are captivating and sublime

—— Sunday Times

The mysteries are never tainted by explanation, merely beautifully described, delivering a hypnotic read

—— Times Higher Education Supplement

Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami's writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility

—— Guardian

Vintage Murakami [and] easily the most erotic of [his] novels

—— Los Angeles Times Book Review

[A] treat...Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done

—— Baltimore Sun

Murakami's most famous coming of age novel of love, loss and longing

—— Dazed and Confused

Catches the absorption and giddy rush of adolescent love... It is also, for all the tragic momentum and the apparently kamikaze consciousness of many of its characters, often funny and quirkily observed.

—— Times Literary Supplement

[A] treat . . . Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done.

—— The Baltimore Sun

One of the most poignant and evocative novels I have ever read

—— Palantinate

Poignant, romantic and hopeless, it beautifully encapsulates heartbreak and loss of faith

—— Sunday Times

Quinn brings the period in question vividly to life: his research is exemplary, and his subject absorbing

—— Lucy Scholes , Observer

All the ingredients of an upmarket page-turner

—— Max Davidson , Mail on Sunday

Ambitious, gripping and disturbingly well done

—— Kate Saunders , The Times

Beyond its splendid feel for the era’s chat and patter, the novel pits philanthropy and opportunism, ideals and selfishness, bracingly at odds

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

This novel is refreshingly different and contains a cornucopia of wonderful material and evocative descriptions

—— Good Book Guide

The best book I’ve read in ages… You have to read it.

—— Hilary Rose , The Times

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