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Home
by Robinson, Marilynne
- Used
- Condition
- Used - Good
- ISBN 10
- 1844085503
- ISBN 13
- 9781844085507
- Seller
-
Dunfermline, Fife, United Kingdom
5 Copies Available from This Seller
(You can add more at checkout.)
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Little, Brown Book Group Limited. Used - Good. Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages.
Reviews
On Nov 11 2014, CloggieDownunder said:
Home is the second book in the Gilead series by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Marilynne Robinson, and is set in Gilead, Iowa at the same time as the first book. This book focusses on Reverend Robert Boughton (closest friend of Reverend John Ames), and his family. Thirty-eight-year-old Glory Boughton, with a failed engagement behind her, returns to Gilead to look after her ailing father, Robert. A letter arrives, and Glory worries about the effect it will have on her father: “…the note might really be from Jack, but upsetting somehow, written from a ward for the chronically vexatious, the terminally remiss”.
Eventually, her disreputable brother Jack, an unemployed alcoholic, returns home after twenty years of virtual silence. Her father is pleased to see this favoured child again, one who went from “a restless, distant, difficult boy” to what Jack himself admits: “….nothing but trouble…….I create a kind of displacement around myself as I pass through the world, which can fairly be called trouble”. Jack is not the only one with secrets in his past, and he and Glory form a bond. His reconnection with his godfather and namesake, Reverend John Ames does not proceed smoothly.
They think back on their youth in the family home: “Experience had taught them that truth has sharp edges and hard corners, and could be seriously at odds with kindness” and “…lying in that family meant only that the liar would appreciate discretion…..as a matter of courtesy they treated one another’s deceptions like truth, which was a different thing from deceiving, or being deceived”. Glory is less than pleased to be in Gilead and dreads the thought of spending the rest of her days there: “To have [the past] overrun its bounds this way and become present and possibly future, too – they all knew this was a thing to be regretted”
Robinson treats the reader to some marvellous descriptive prose: “Their father said if they could see as God can, in geological time, they would see it leap out of the ground and turn in the sun and spread it arms and bask in the joys of being an oak tree in Iowa”. She touches on the question of racial prejudice and also includes some hints about the life Lila led before Gilead, a subject expanded on in the third book in this series. While this novel is somewhat slow in places, it is a stirring read and the final pages will move many readers to tears.
4.5★s
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Details
- Bookseller
- Better World Books Ltd (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- GRP64993769
- Title
- Home
- Author
- Robinson, Marilynne
- Book Condition
- Used - Good
- Quantity Available
- 5
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 1844085503
- ISBN 13
- 9781844085507
- Publisher
- Little, Brown Book Group Limited
- Place of Publication
- United Kingdom
- This edition first published
- 2009
Terms of Sale
Better World Books Ltd
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping cost for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged. Please keep in mind that because we deal mostly in used books, any extra components, such as CDs or access codes, are usually not included. CDs: If the book does include a CD, it will be noted in the book's description ("With CD!"). Otherwise, there is no CD included, even if the term is used in the book's title. Access Codes: Unless the book is described as "New," please assume that the book does *not* have an access code.
About the Seller
Better World Books Ltd
Biblio member since 2009
Dunfermline, Fife
About Better World Books Ltd
Better World Books generates funding for literacy charities through the sales of second-hand books. Our current partner charities in the UK are READ International, the National Literacy Trust, Room to Read. (Registered Charities no. 1128534, no. 1116260 and no. 1125803 and the National Adult Literacy Agency. Much of our stock is ex-library due to our close relationships with UK libraries. We offer a service that helps them keep their unwanted books out of landfill. All ex-library books will be marked as such in their individual listings. 99% of orders are dispatched within 24 hours and we offer a 100% money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied.