Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

Strong.  Reminded me alot of The English Patient and The Comforters by Muriel Spark.  An old woman is dying in a London hospital, and telling herself (and us) the history of the world as focussed on her, the black hole of which was her brief, ill-fated love affair with an army officer in the British tank battles with Rommel in the Egyptian desert during World War II.