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Prayer for Owen Meanyby John Irving
Powells.com Staff PickOn one list are the books you like to recommend. You want to turn on someone to your favorite unknown author or introduce them to the season's latest, greatest novel. If you've read widely enough over the years, you'll match reader to occasion. The list comes to include something for just about anyone in any setting: Funny books and smart ones; easy and hard; books that teach and those that entertain; pages best turned at the beach, on a plane, or sick in bed; a pick for the woman you want to impress or the friend who reads mostly in ten-minute bursts between cab fares; dry, plotless affairs that ease you toward sleep or blazers that set your mind racing, keep you up late into the night. A much shorter list contains the sure bets — the ones that work for just about any reader, young or old, anywhere, at any time. A Prayer for Owen Meany may be the only book on my second list. You get OWEN MEANY'S SQUEAKY VOICE into a person's head and the worst they'll ever say is they loved it. Without fail, they will thank you. [See our guarantee.] Three people I've given it to, years and oceans apart, reported back that it had become their favorite novel of all-time. "Which one do I read next?" they all ask, so swiftly converted. (Often they're not even done with the book and already they're planning ahead. Anxiety has set in, a debilitating abandonment neurosis symptomatic of the last hundred pages.) "Take your pick," tell them. The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, The Hotel New Hampshire, A Widow for One Year... Dave, Powells.com Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:In the summer of 1953, two 11-year-old boys — best friends — are playing in a Little League baseball game in New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills his best friend's mother. Owen Meany believes he didn't hit the ball by accident. He believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after 1953 is extraordinary and terrifying. He is Irving's most heartbreaking hero.
Review:"Superbly narrated sequences of comic action... Irving is particularly good at rendering the dynamics of things — he has a Dickensian ability to juxtapose and animate unpromising objects? [as in] the book's grand and brilliantly conceived final scene....You don't just read Irving, you listen to him." The New Republic
Review:"Extraordinary, so original, and so enriching....A rare creation in the somehow exhausted world of late 20th century fiction....Readers will come to the end feeling sorry to leave [this] richly textured and carefully wrought world." Stephen King, The Washington Post Book World
Review:"Roomy, intelligent, exhilarating, and darkly comic....Dickensian in
scope....Quite stunning and very ambitious." Los Angeles Times Book Review
Review:"A lavish meditation on predestination, faith, and the unrealized forces that shape one's days." San Francisco Chronicle
Review:"John Irving is an abundantly and even joyfully talented storyteller." The New York Times Book Review
Review:"Vintage Irving....A boisterous cast, a spirited joy." Time
Review:"A Prayer for Owen Meany leaps off the pages with an imaginative passion that is startling....This is John Irving at full throttle: a riveting narrative, a cast of richly developed characters, and a story as complex and unbelievable as life itself....[A] joyous, provocative read!" Playboy
Review:"I have been a voracious reader since childhood, and while I've read and loved many, many books, I can honestly say that A Prayer for Owen Meany is my all-time favorite! It is such an extraordinarily funny, moving and heartbreaking story and the ending is the best and most satisfying one I've ever read. The highlight of my first year working for Ballantine Books was attending a reading John Irving gave for the paperback publication. Owen Meany has a very memorable voice when you read the book, so you can imagine how exciting it was for me to hear my favorite author read my favorite book and do the voice of Owen Meany!" M. Coolman, Ballantine Publicity
Review:"Riveting...Owen Meany, drawn in bold strokes, burns in the mind's eye — vivid, alive, beloved — long after the turning of the final page." UPI
Review:"One of the most subtle and brilliant artistic examinations yet of America and America's involvement in Vietnam." San Jose Mercury News
Review:"A wondrous novel... ultimately beguiling in its soulful account of a remarkable friendship... Irving's ability to create idiosyncratic characters and put them through weirdly ridiculous yet realistic paces has never been in finer fettle. Humor partnered with compassion, wisdom with absurdity, leave the reader both mirthful and tearful." Booklist
Review:"[Mr. Irving] is more than popular. He is a Populist, determined to keep alive the Dickensian tradition that revels in colorful set pieces and teaches moral lessons....More than any of his novels since Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany embraces those 19th-century qualities." The New York Times
Synopsis:Owen Meany, the only child of a New Hampshire granite quarrier, believes he is God's instrument; he is. This is John Irving's most comic novel, yet Owen Meany is Mr. Irving's most heartbreaking character. " Roomy, intelligent, exhilarating and darkly comic...Dickensian in scope....Quite stunning and very ambitious." LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW " John Irving is an abundantly and even joyfully talented storyteller." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOKR EVIEW About the AuthorJohn Irving published his first novel at the age of twenty-six. He has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation; he has won an O. Henry Award, a National Book Award, and an Academy Award. Mr. Irving lives with his family in Toronto and Vermont. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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