Reading Group Center




Anne Michaels' The Winter Vault is Now in Paperback!

Anne Michaels, author of the bestseller Fugitive Pieces, now has her newest novel, The Winter Vault, in paperback.

In The Winter Vault, award-winning poet and novelist Anne Michaels crafts a love story of extraordinary depth and complexity, juxtaposing historic dislocations with the most intimate moments of individual lives.

In 1964, a newly married Canadian couple settles into a Nile River houseboat moored below the towering figures of Abu Simbel. Avery is one of the engineers responsible for moving the temple above the rapidly rising waters of the Aswan Dam. At the edge of a world about to be lost forever, Avery and and his new wife Jean begin to create their own world. But it will not be enough to bind them when tragedy strikes and they go back to separate lives in Toronto. There Jean meets Lucjan, a Polish artist whose haunting stories of his shattered childhood in occupied Warsaw draw her further away from Avery. But, in time, he will also show her the way back to consolation and forgiveness.

The Winter Vault abducts the imagination and breaks the heart.” —Los Angeles Times

“Michaels has written another meticulous and profound poetic meditation on themes that weave and recur as the characters tell their stories…. Dense, rich, and beautifully written.” —Boston Globe

“Clearly the work of a poet; every page quietly sparkles with metaphors that are often startlingly beautiful.” —Seattle Times

Click here for an excerpt.

Click here for a reading group guide.

Click here to learn more about Anne Michaels.