Présentation de l'éditeur The No. 1 New York Times BestsellerJess Walter's Beautiful Ruins is a gorgeous, glamorous novel set in 1960s Italy and a modern Hollywood studio.The story begins in 1962. Somewhere on a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and views an apparition: a beautiful woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an American starlet, he soon learns, and she is dying.And the story begins again today, half a world away in Hollywood, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot searching for the woman he last saw at his hotel fifty years before.Gloriously inventive, funny, tender and constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a novel full of fabulous and yet very flawed people, all of them striving towards another sort of life, a future that is both delightful and yet, tantalizingly, seems just out of reach.'Magic...A monument to crazy love with a deeply romantic heart' New York Times'A novel shot in sparkly Technicolor' Booklist'Hilarious and compelling' Esquire'Beautiful Ruins is a novel unlike any other you're likely to read this year' Nick Hornby, The Believer Revue de presse Just about the perfect summer read. It is intelligent and thought-provoking, but also a lot of fun. Reading hours fly by and reaching the final page feels like a genuine wrench ( Sunday Times) Ambitious, large-hearted, exhilarating novel that leaves you wanting more . . . Very, very funny ( The Times) Beautiful Ruins is a novel unlike any other you're likely to read this year (Nick Hornby) Romantic, very funny...Turbo-charged satire meets a Garcia Marquezesque love story. What's not to like? ( Daily Mail) Walter creates an epic here - one that took him 15 years to write. The end result, however, is well worth the wait ( Observer) A sparkling summer read ( Telegraph) Thoroughly enjoyable, a tender, funny, ridiculous tale which has love at its core and a keen satirical edge to cut through the lovely, lush romanticism ( Sunday Express) You're going to love this book ( New York Times Book Review) A brilliant, madcap meditation on fate ( Kirkus Reviews) A novel shot in sparkly Technicolor ( Booklist) The beach read of the summer ( Vogue) Hilarious and compelling ( Esquire) Magic. Walter is a believer in capricious destiny with a fine, freewheeling sense of humour . . . A monument to crazy love with a deeply romantic heart ( New York Times) Poignant, comical and marvellous ( San Francisco Chronicle) Larger-than-life characters, billowy romance and crafty satire ... Any book that includes Richard Burton as a character is fine by us ( Esquire) Cinematic and utterly romantic . . . the big beach read for summer ( Sunday Times) My absolute favourite read this year (Nick Curtis Evening Standard 'Books of the Year') A bravura feat (Peter Kemp Sunday Times 'Books of the Year') The beach read of 2013 ( Grazia 'Books of the Year') Think Il Postino with a walk-on part for a comically drunk Richard Burton (Peter Brookes The Times 'Books of the Year') Walter's account of the filming of the Burton/Taylor classic Cleopatra is a playful imagining of emotional history and hidden lives just out of view. Be warned, this is a novel that may make any festive guests somewhat anti-social as I read it in two days flat (Olivia Cole GQ 'Books of the Year') Quatrième de couverture The No. 1 New York Times Bestseller Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins is a gorgeous, glamorous novel set in 1960s Italy and a modern Hollywood studio. The story begins in 1962. Somewhere on a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and views an apparition: a beautiful woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an American starlet, he soon learns, and she is dying. And the story begins again