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Catherine Banner

Goodreads Author

Born

in Cambridge, The United Kingdom

Website

http://www.catherine-banner.com/

Genre

Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Fiction

Member Since

January 2013

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Catherine Banner was born in Cambridge, UK, in 1989 and began writing at the age of fourteen. She studied English at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, before moving to County Durham where she worked as a secondary school teacher. She has published a trilogy of young adult novels, The Last Descendants.

Her debut adult novel, The House at the Edge of Night, tells the story of the 2008 financial crisis and 95 years of European history through one family and their bar on a tiny Mediterranean island.

Her work is translated into 24 languages. She lives in Turin, Italy, with her husband.

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Popular Answered Questions

I won a copy of The House At The Edge Of Night several weeks ago and I've not received it. I wondered if you could help? Many thanks.

Catherine Banner Hi Tracy,
Sorry to hear this. Are you in the UK? A few readers have had this problem and my publishers and I aren't sure why... I'll contact them and a…moreHi Tracy,
Sorry to hear this. Are you in the UK? A few readers have had this problem and my publishers and I aren't sure why... I'll contact them and ask them if they can do anything to help. I'll post back here as soon as I have more information!
Best wishes,
Catherine(less)

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Catherine Banner Yes, I do love history. But I must admit that I came to historical fiction writing by a very indirect route. When I began to write The House at the Ed…moreYes, I do love history. But I must admit that I came to historical fiction writing by a very indirect route. When I began to write The House at the Edge of Night, I was convinced it would be a modern book. I wanted to write about the 2008 financial crisis, and about young characters, so I didn't see any reason to write about the past. But gradually I came to understand that it wouldn't make sense to tell that story without also going back into the past to understand the events that came before - what the historian Eric Hobsbawm calls 'The road that led us here'. In this, I was particularly influenced by magical realist writers, who collapse time and tell the stories of generations with a wonderfully light touch. To try and piece together the road that led us to the financial crisis, I decided to immerse myself in documents and sources, visit libraries and archives, and see what I could discover. And when I did that, a strange thing happened. As I researched 20th century history, whole new vistas opened up, and I discovered many untold stories belonging to the past which I felt also deserved to be told. The book, in the end, crosses a long sweep of time - both the personal history of one family and the bigger history of the world beyond their island - and I think it also became a stronger, more interesting story because of that. For me now, particularly as a European writer, I feel that I can't escape writing about the past because in it I find powerful reflections of our current predicaments, experiences, hopes and fears, and the seeds of what makes us who we are.(less)

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Combine Editions
Catherine Banner’s books

Average rating: 3.92 · 14,450 ratings · 1,726 reviews · 5 distinct works • Similar authors

	The House at the Edge of Night 3.98 avg rating — 13,182 ratings — published 2016 — 62 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Eyes of a King (The Last Descendants, #1) 3.27 avg rating — 994 ratings — published 2008 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Voices in the Dark (The Last Descendants, #2) 3.53 avg rating — 243 ratings — published 2009 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Heart at War (The Last Descendants, #3) 3.81 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 2015 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Lit and Unlit World did not like it 1.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Catherine Banner…

88 posts
Catherine Banner's Blog

A 2021 update

Good afternoon from Torino!

It's been such a long time since I posted regularly on this blog, and I know quite a few readers are still following here for updates. Many of you have also been emailing me during this strange pandemic year, and it's such a joy and inspiration to read your words, so I just wanted to send you a heartfelt thank you for your huge support of me and my work, and to post a qu Read more of this blog post »

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Published on March 12, 2021 09:20

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Series by Catherine Banner

The Last Descendants (3 books)
by

Catherine Banner (Goodreads Author)

3.34 avg rating — 1,268 ratings

Catherine is Currently Reading

Catherine Banner is currently reading

The Wonder Weeks: A Stress-Free Guide to Your Baby's Behavior

by Xaviera Plas-Plooij

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Jun 09, 2022 02:40AM

Quotes by Catherine Banner (?)

“Sometimes grief needed a focus, an object”
― Catherine Banner, The House at the Edge of Night

2 likes

“The stories that the poor loved best, it seemed, were sad ones.”
― Catherine Banner, The House at the Edge of Night

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“The kind of place one could not love without effort, and yet, she understood now, the only place on the face of the whole earth that she herself loved.”
― Catherine Banner, The House at the Edge of Night

1 likes

See all Catherine Banner's quotes »

Polls

Cartea lunii martie 2022

Portocala mecanică de Anthony Burgess

41 votes 38.3%

Oameni normali de Sally Rooney

30 votes 28.0%

Casa de la Marginea Nopții de Catherine Banner

17 votes 15.9%

Serenadă pentru Nadia de Zülfü Livaneli

11 votes 10.3%

Cloud Cuckoo Land de Anthony Doerr

8 votes 7.5%

107 total votes

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