I had rather mixed feelings about this book, winner of various prizes for fiction. I liked it - just not enough to understand what all the fuss was about. The book creates portraits of a variety of people, from different backgrounds, countries and even times. Over the course of the pages, we see how they are all linked together, even if they themselves are unaware of it. The characters are well-drawn and interesting, as is the way they are joined, but I just didn't really feel emotionally connected to what I was reading, or much care about the people involved. I arrived at the end of the book and was quite surprised to find myself there with no warning. I do not mean this to be an overly negative review - the writing is very good, I just feel that it is perhaps not my sort of book.