Moon tiger

The elderly Claudia Hampton, a best-selling author of popular history; lies alone in a London hospital bed.

Memories of her life still glow in her fading consciousness, but she imagines writing a history of the world.

Instead, Moon Tiger is her own history, the life of a strong, independent woman, with its often contentious relations with family and friends.

At its center forever frozen in time, the still point of her turning world is the cruelly truncated affair with Tom, a British tank commander whom Claudia knew as a reporter in Egypt during World War II.