10 Novels about Cellists
If you’re looking for a book about a cello player, cello student or professional cellist, you’ve come to the right place. For a full list of novels about string players, visit our online bookshop at Bookshop.org.
Patrick Gale, published in 2018 by Headline Publishing Group
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1970s Weston-Super-Mare and ten-year-old oddball Eustace, an only child, has life transformed by his mother's quixotic decision to sign him up for cello lessons. Music-making brings release for a boy who is discovering he is an emotional volcano. He laps up lessons from his young teacher, not noticing how her brand of glamour is casting a damaging spell over his frustrated and controlling mother.
When he is enrolled in holiday courses in the Scottish borders, lessons in love, rejection and humility are added to daily practice.
Anstey Harris, published in 2018 by Simon and Schuster Ltd
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Between the simple melody of running her violin shop and the full-blown orchestra of her romantic interludes in Paris with David, her devoted partner of eight years, Grace Atherton (who trained as a cellist at music college) has always set her life to music.
It takes a vivacious old man and a straight-talking teenager to kickstart a new chapter for Grace. In the process, she learns that she is not as alone in the world as she had once thought, that no mistake is insurmountable, and that the quiet moments in life can be something to shout about…
Steven Galloway, published in 2008 by Atlantic Books
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Snipers in the hills overlook the shattered streets of Sarajevo. Knowing that the next bullet could strike at any moment, the ordinary men and women below strive to go about their daily lives as best they can. Kenan faces the agonizing dilemma of crossing the city to get water for his family. Dragan, gripped by fear, does not know who among his friends he can trust. And Arrow, a young woman counter-sniper must push herself to the limits - of body and soul, fear and humanity.
Told with immediacy, grace and harrowing emotional accuracy, The Cellist of Sarajevo shows how, when the everyday act of crossing the street can risk lives, the human spirit is revealed in all its fortitude - and frailty.
Katy Cox, published in 2022 by Atlantic Books
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Lucy had it all: an exciting career, a rock-star husband, and pelvic floor muscles that could crack a walnut. And then, she had kids...
Since giving birth to her second child, Lucy's life is totally unrecognisable: the romance in her marriage is officially dead and so is the career it took her years to build.
Instead of playing the cello behind superstars at packed-out arenas, Lucy now spends most days mopping up broccoli vomit whilst listening to her four-year-old recite facts about the gallbladder. Something needs to change.
John Lawton, published in 2010 by Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
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Vienna, 1934. Ten-year-old cello prodigy Meret Voytek becomes a pupil of concert pianist Viktor Rosen, a Jew in exile from Germany.
The Isle of Man, 1940. An interned Hungarian physicist is recruited for the Manhattan Project in Los Alomos, building the atom bomb for the Americans.
Auschwitz, 1944. Meret is imprisoned but is saved from certain death to play the cello in the camp orchestra. She is playing for her life.
London, 1948. Viktor Rosen wants to relinquish his Communist Party membership after thirty years. His comrade and friend reminds him that he committed for life...
Jennifer Atkins, published in 2022 by Peninsula Press Ltd
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A piercing meditation on love and music, and the silence and inscrutability which underpins the performance of each. Luc has lived a long time as a soloist.
She has not seen Billy for many years. A visit to a major show of his sculptures sends her arrowing back to a younger version of herself: to a time when she had to make room to love him when she'd felt no room within herself. To a time when she was forced to make a choice between being one thing or another.
To a time when he was a sculptor, but she was not yet a cellist. In exquisite and crystalline prose, The Cellist explores how you might make room for beauty and mastery for yourself, and still leave space for someone else.
Katherine Min, published in 2025 by Little, Brown Book Group
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On a cold, gloomy night, 23-year-old Kyoko stands in the rain with a knife in her hoodie's pocket. Her target is Daniel, who seduced Kyoko's mother then callously dropped her, leading to her suicide. Tonight, there will be repercussions. Following the unsuspecting Daniel home, Kyoko manages to get a reckless kidnapping plot off the ground. . . and then nothing goes as planned.
This is the story of three people - Kyoko, a Japanese American punk-rock singer full of rage and grief; Daniel, a philandering violinist forced to confront the wreckage of his past; and Alma, the love of Daniel's life, a Korean American cello prodigy long adored for her beauty and talent, but who spends her final days asking if she was ever truly loved.
Isabel Rogers, published in 2019 by Duckworth Books
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Classical music can be a dangerous pastime…
What with love affairs, their conductor dropping dead, a stolen cello and no money, Stockwell Park Orchestra is having a fraught season.
After Mrs Ford-Hughes is squashed and injured by a dying guest conductor mid-concert, she and her husband withdraw their generous financial backing, leaving the orchestra broke and unsure of its future.
Cellist Erin suggests a recovery plan, but since it involves their unreliable leader, Fenella, playing a priceless Stradivari cello which then goes missing, it’s not a fool-proof one. Joshua, the regular conductor, can’t decide which affair to commit to, while manager David’s nervous tic returns at every doom-laden report from the orchestra’s treasurer.
Jayne Joso, published in 2016 by Poetry Wales Press
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Having lost his job and his home, Takeo Tanaka, a young Japanese man, takes refuge in a dilapidated wood and paper house. He sets himself projects in an attempt to hold on to his sanity and as recompense for trespassing and dwelling in a house for which he makes no payment. But with only a cat and a cello for company, his ability to distinguish between real and imagined events is soon deeply challenged, and he is ultimately held captive by his own paralysing suspicion of the outside world.
Iain Banks, published in 1989 by Little, Brown Book Group
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Hisako Onada, world-famous cellist, refuses to fly. And so she travels to Europe as a passenger on a tanker bound through the Panama Canal. But Panama is a country whose politics are as volatile as the local freedom fighters. When Hisako's ship is captured, it is not long before the atmosphere is as flammable as an oxy-acetylene torch, and the tension as sharp as the spike on the cello...
Hannah Fiddy is the Founder of Alternative Classical and a freelance marketing consultant, developing audiences for classical music. Described as a "classical innovator" by Classical Whisper, Hannah has created and promoted numerous concerts outside of traditional spaces, including warehouses, pubs, clubs and museums; interviewed some of the world's most famous composers; and guest lectured on innovation in the classical music industry. Hannah has managed the digital marketing for many music organisations and artists including choral composer John Rutter and The King’s Singers. In a past life she founded London Flashmob, producing quirky events from wedding proposals to cultural pranks for up to 1,000 people.
