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Interviews | December 28, 2009

Megan: IMG Finding Lost Lore: The Powells.com Interview with Paul Jenner

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unamcgovernandpauljennerPerhaps there's a line graph somewhere that explains the correlation between an abundance of available technology and one's increased interest in... Continue »
  1. $17.46 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

    Lost Lore: A Celebration of Traditional Wisdom from Foraging and Festivals to Seafaring and Smoke Signals

    Una McGovern and Paul Jenner

Bee Season

by Myla Goldberg

Bee Season Cover

Synopses & Reviews

From Powells.com:

Every year hundreds of aspiring writers see their first book published. But only a select few truly stand out as more than the promising work of an adolescent writer. Like the first works of such writers as Zadie Smith, Nathan Englander, and Colson Whitehead, Bee Season is remarkably assured. Myla Goldberg's story of quirky Eliza Naumann, who has a natural talent for spelling, and her disintegrating, dysfunctional family is much more than an insightful and heart-rending family drama, though it is that. It is also a provocative novel of ideas, a Kabbalah-inspired meditation on the power of words, and a poetic exploration of the mysterious presence of God. Goldberg is a writer of multiple gifts, bringing to her career as a novelist a formidable intellect, an empathetic heart, a nimble imagination, and – most importantly – the discipline and skill to shape her material into an affecting work of art. Readers of Bee Season will find themselves cranky and impatient for her next book. Martin, Powells.com

Review:

"In a story told with unique delicacy and brave inventiveness, a young girl, innocent and all-knowing, learns how much there is to lose, and what it takes to win." Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle
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About the Author

Myla Goldberg lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, Jason Little.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Bonnie Jeanne, May 19, 2007 (view all comments by Bonnie Jeanne)
So much is made in other reviews of this book of the family that seeks perfection only to fall further and further from it, but I think the story isn't so much about perfection as it is about just plain seeking.

I didn't see the Naumann family as at all "eccentric," as described in Publisher's Weekly review above. They are a family like any family, with communication trouble, secrets, and compulsions. What difference does it make if a compulsion brings you into strangers' homes to collect an item that is calling to you, or wash your hands a million times a day, or simply buy just one more book when you already have so many at home that you will never in one lifetime read them. Compulsion is the "irresistible impulse to perform an irrational act," and I think it is the eccentrics who don't have that impulse. Those of us who recognize it, and perhaps change it, are perhaps luckier than those whose compulsions bring them terrible harm, but that is another story.

This story is just a wonderful read that puts you inside your own kaleidoscope. It's amazingly dizzying.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780385498791
Author:
Goldberg, Myla
Publisher:
Bantam ;
Location:
New York :
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Jews
Subject:
Domestic fiction
Subject:
Jewish families
Subject:
Spelling ability
Subject:
Bildungsromane.
Subject:
Jewish girls
Edition Number:
1st ed.
Series Volume:
105-17
Publication Date:
2000
Binding:
Trade Cloth
Language:
English
Pages:
304 p.
Dimensions:
9.55x6.43x1.07 in. 1.10 lbs.
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