| 1. | Smiley, Jane Horse Heaven
Faber and Faber March 2001 Paperback
Paperback - 2001 - good condition - ladylisabooks website used books, secondhand books, out of print books, hard to find books, second-hand books, nonfiction, non-fiction books delivered world wide.To horse racing and baseball fans alike, spring is the season to get reacquainted with their heroes; it is the time to grab a scorecard, place a fewbets, and head to the nearest dusty expanse of grass. Most of all, it's thetime to dream, because on a baseball diamond or a horse track anything ispossible. Judging by her magnificent new novel, Horse Heaven, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley understands this fact. With utter authorityand aplomb, her seventh novel opens up the world of horse racing as never before; it takes us on a circuit from Del Mar to Saratoga and back again, bringing to life the owners, the trainers, and (most humorously) the horses themselves. While Horse Heaven is likely to be the definitive novel about horse racing, it is more than just a well-researched sojourn in this nervy world. It is a meditation on how we gamble at life's racetrack, wagering mostcautiously when that bet is for happiness.To tell this epic tale (it has nearly three dozen characters), Smiley employs an unusual narrative strategy: She sets the dramas of her human characters against the backdrop of those of her horses. We meet and get to know every horse in an intimate way, from Justabob, an imperious stallion with anger management issues, to Epic Steam, an ornery black stud with a heart the size of a Volkswagen. They are affectionate when loved, truculent when provoked, and mournful when they lose a friend on the road
Price: 4.00 GBP |
