One of the most reviewed books of the year: "It's a little miracle." ( New York Times Book Review ) In this superb and distinctive memoir, Sybille Bedford takes us on an epic personal journey from World War I Berlin via the writers' and artists' bohemia of the C™te d'Azur in the 1920s, to post World War II London, New York, Paris, and Rome. Following no maxim but the need for a place and a space to write, Sybille Bedford's life has been that of the free-spirited, committed artist: precarious, passionate, and frequently impoverished. At the same time it has been a life richly lived: full of incident, impetuousness, danger, fun, friends, lovers, mentors, art, and writing. Whether evoking the simple joys of a slow dinner with friends under the open sky or tracing the heart-rending outline of an intimate betrayal, recalling a madcap twenty-four-hour dash from northern France to Rome, or remembering a languorous summer on Capri, Sybille Bedford offers us a spell-binding reflection on how history imprints itself on private lives. Quicksands is one of those rarest of books: a book to savor, which will stay in the reader's memory long after it has been put down. A unique journey through a life and a century, it cuts forwards and backwards through time and acquaintance, always remaining true to the coiling and uncoiling of memory itself.