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12/1/2015BookFilter | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=5e9e3ed7-7651-4b28-8b76-593b28b53b04&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/4HomeTop Picks: All BooksSome Luck
MoreSome Luckby Jane SmileyPrice: $26.95(Hardcover)Published: October 07, 2014Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)From the Publisher: Longlisted for the 2014 National BookAwardFrom the winner of the Pulitzer Prize: a powerful, engrossing newnovel—the life and times of a remarkable family over threetransformative decades in America. On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abideby time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildlydifferent children: from Frank, the handsome, willful first born, andJoe, whose love of animals and the land sustains him, to Claire,who earns a special place in her father’s heart. Each chapter in Some Luck covers a single year, beginning in1920, as American soldiers like Walter return home from WorldWar I, and going up through the early 1950s, with the country onthe cusp of enormous social and economic change. As theLangdons branch out from Iowa to both coasts of America, the…Rate This Book|Rate/ReviewAdd To BookshelfGet This BookGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site whereyou can get this book.BookFilter
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Personalize / Add More ChoicesWhat We SayAuthor Jane Smiley has already won the Pulitzer Prize for "A Thousand Acres" and delivered numerous othercompelling works for adults and young people. But when you read "Some Luck" -- the first in a proposed trilogy thattraces the life of a family and the life of America from 1920 to today -- it's easy to believe you're reading her magnumopus. The story begins in Iowa and the life of Rosanna and Walter Langdon. Each chapter captures a moment in thatyear, progressing from 1920 to 1921 and 1922 and so on, with all the inevitability and surprise of the seasons. Weknow the major events looming up before them, like the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl years, World War II andbeyond. But the real drama comes not from the panorama of the changing years but in the very particular lives of theLangdons and their six children. Smiley is especially remarkable when telling a chapter from the point of view of asmall child. She creates such vivid and specific people that our intimate knowledge of them carries through theirlives; we know these people better than we know ourselves and yet still they surprise us and yet remain true to whothey are. Romance, heartbreak, the Sisyphean struggle with the land, the brave leap out of the family nest to see theworld or just cross the street and farm the land in a slightly different way than your father: it's all here. Smiley'slanguage is clear and direct but wonderfully subtle. You'll experience changing attitudes towards breastfeeding, theCold War, impulsive moments that change a life, marriages that drift apart and drift back together again out offamiliarity or rekindled love or inertia and always, always, the ever-surprising miracle parents share of watching achild grow and seeing what they do with their lives. Easily one of the best books of the year. Now where's book two?-- Michael GiltzLessWhat Others Say“This sweeping, carefully plotted novel traces the history, from 1920 to the Cold War era, of a single Iowa farmingfamily. Each chapter focuses on one year, setting the minor catastrophes and victories of the family’s life against abackdrop of historical change, particularly the Great Depression. As the children branch out from their tiny town, so,too, does the story, eventually encompassing several generations, cities, and cultural movements. Smiley, like one ofher characters contemplating the guests at the Thanksgiving table, begins with an empty house and fills it ‘withtwenty-three different worlds, each one of them rich and mysterious.’” —The New Yorker “What’s unusual about Some Luck is how closely it’s meant to mimic real life, and yet how important Smiley’s gifts asa novelist are to achieving that effect. The way the story unfolds makes it feel not so much like reading a novel ascatching up with relatives every couple of months, finding out who’s been up to what and comparing stories.Characters reminisce about scenes from earlier in the book that start to feel like our memories, too. Smiley’s ability tosketch a scene, to bring to life the…More
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=5e9e3ed7-7651-4b28-8b76-593b28b53b04&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/4HomeTop Picks: All BooksSome Luck
MoreSome Luckby Jane SmileyPrice: $26.95(Hardcover)Published: October 07, 2014Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)From the Publisher: Longlisted for the 2014 National BookAwardFrom the winner of the Pulitzer Prize: a powerful, engrossing newnovel—the life and times of a remarkable family over threetransformative decades in America. On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abideby time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildlydifferent children: from Frank, the handsome, willful first born, andJoe, whose love of animals and the land sustains him, to Claire,who earns a special place in her father’s heart. Each chapter in Some Luck covers a single year, beginning in1920, as American soldiers like Walter return home from WorldWar I, and going up through the early 1950s, with the country onthe cusp of enormous social and economic change. As theLangdons branch out from Iowa to both coasts of America, the…Rate This Book|Rate/ReviewAdd To BookshelfGet This BookGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site whereyou can get this book.BookFilter
12/1/2015BookFilter | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=5e9e3ed7-7651-4b28-8b76-593b28b53b04&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/4
Personalize / Add More ChoicesWhat We SayAuthor Jane Smiley has already won the Pulitzer Prize for "A Thousand Acres" and delivered numerous othercompelling works for adults and young people. But when you read "Some Luck" -- the first in a proposed trilogy thattraces the life of a family and the life of America from 1920 to today -- it's easy to believe you're reading her magnumopus. The story begins in Iowa and the life of Rosanna and Walter Langdon. Each chapter captures a moment in thatyear, progressing from 1920 to 1921 and 1922 and so on, with all the inevitability and surprise of the seasons. Weknow the major events looming up before them, like the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl years, World War II andbeyond. But the real drama comes not from the panorama of the changing years but in the very particular lives of theLangdons and their six children. Smiley is especially remarkable when telling a chapter from the point of view of asmall child. She creates such vivid and specific people that our intimate knowledge of them carries through theirlives; we know these people better than we know ourselves and yet still they surprise us and yet remain true to whothey are. Romance, heartbreak, the Sisyphean struggle with the land, the brave leap out of the family nest to see theworld or just cross the street and farm the land in a slightly different way than your father: it's all here. Smiley'slanguage is clear and direct but wonderfully subtle. You'll experience changing attitudes towards breastfeeding, theCold War, impulsive moments that change a life, marriages that drift apart and drift back together again out offamiliarity or rekindled love or inertia and always, always, the ever-surprising miracle parents share of watching achild grow and seeing what they do with their lives. Easily one of the best books of the year. Now where's book two?-- Michael GiltzLessWhat Others Say“This sweeping, carefully plotted novel traces the history, from 1920 to the Cold War era, of a single Iowa farmingfamily. Each chapter focuses on one year, setting the minor catastrophes and victories of the family’s life against abackdrop of historical change, particularly the Great Depression. As the children branch out from their tiny town, so,too, does the story, eventually encompassing several generations, cities, and cultural movements. Smiley, like one ofher characters contemplating the guests at the Thanksgiving table, begins with an empty house and fills it ‘withtwenty-three different worlds, each one of them rich and mysterious.’” —The New Yorker “What’s unusual about Some Luck is how closely it’s meant to mimic real life, and yet how important Smiley’s gifts asa novelist are to achieving that effect. The way the story unfolds makes it feel not so much like reading a novel ascatching up with relatives every couple of months, finding out who’s been up to what and comparing stories.Characters reminisce about scenes from earlier in the book that start to feel like our memories, too. Smiley’s ability tosketch a scene, to bring to life the…More