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Powell's Q&A, Q&A | December 10, 2009

Sam Stephenson: IMG Powell's Q&A: Sam Stephenson

0 comments By Sam Stephenson

Describe your latest book/project/work. I've been studying the life and work of photographer W. Eugene Smith for 13 years. My first book (Dream... Continue »
  1. $28.00 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

    The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965

    Sam Stephenson and W. Eugene Smith
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10 Burnside Literature- A to Z
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Other titles in the Harvest in Translation series:

  1. A Late Divorce
  2. A Perfect Peace
  3. Garden, Ashes
  4. In the Dutch Mountains
  5. Mr. Mani
  6. Open Heart
  7. The Following Story
  8. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
  9. The Lover
  10. The Name of a Bullfighter
  11. The Name of the Rose
  12. The Old Man Who Read Love Stories
  13. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

Too Loud a Solitude

by Bohumil Hrabal

Too Loud a Solitude Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Hanta has been compacting trash for thirty-five years. Every evening he resues books from the jaws of his hydraulic press, carries them home, and fills his house with them. Hanta may be an idiot, as his boss calls him, but he is an idiot with a difference — the ability to quote the Talmud, Hegel, and Lao-tzu.

In this baroque and winsome tale, Hrabal, whom Milan Kundera has called "our very best writer today," celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the written word.

Review:

"[An] absorbing fable about a man who educates himself with the discarded printed matter he collects." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"Hrabal's tale, so finely balanced between pathos and comedy, loses none of its power now that Czechoslovakia is free." Los Angeles Times

Review:

"An irresistibly eccentric romp, quick with the heart's life." New York Times Book Review
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
venusinfauxfurz, May 5, 2007 (view all comments by venusinfauxfurz)
Simply a beautiful story. It grabs you on the first line and lets you down easily on the last.
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Ailana, January 4, 2007 (view all comments by Ailana)
Though brief, this is a powerful, compelling book. The details of the paper recycler's life and art are vivid and will remain with me. Hrabal focuses not only on books but also on the motivation and obsession of the worker/artist and society's response to them. The book is symbolic on so many levels.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780156904582
Author:
Hrabal, Bohumil
Publisher:
Mariner Books
Translator:
Heim, Michael Henry
Author:
Heim, Michael Henry
Location:
San Diego
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
General Fiction
Edition Number:
1st Harvest/HBJ ed.
Edition Description:
Harvest/HBJ
Series:
Harvest in translation
Series Volume:
Nr. 4394
Publication Date:
April 1992
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
112
Dimensions:
7.93x5.34x.33 in. .26 lbs.
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