Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks

BUY IT NEW

  • $15.00 List price
    $12.00 Online Price
    $10.80 Member price
    (Save 27%)
    Limited Time Offer! Everyone receives the Member Price on books.
    See Details
  • skip to cart
  • Add To List uiAction=GetAllLists&page=List&pageType=list&ean=9780142001431&productCode=BK&maxCount=100&threshold=3

GET FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OF $25 OR MORE

DELIVERY & GIFT DETAILS:

Usually ships within 24 hours

Delivery Time and Shipping Rates

Eligible for gift wrap & gift message.

BUY IT USED

55 copies from $1.99

See All Available

Pick Me Up

Reserve it at BN.com & pick it up in 60 minutes at your local store.

Enter a zip code

(Paperback - Reprint)

  • Pub. Date: April 2002
  • 336pp
  • Sales Rank: 3,661
B&N Discover Great New Writers

Reader Rating: (89 ratings)

Detailed Rating: "Characters" See All

    Buy it Used: 55 copies from $1.99 See All Available

    Customers who bought this also bought

     
    • Overview
    • Editorial Reviews
    • Customer Reviews
    • Meet the Writer
    • Features

    Product Details

    • Pub. Date: April 2002
    • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
    • Format: Paperback, 336pp
    • Sales Rank: 3,661
    • Lexile: 1080L 

    Synopsis

    Year of Wonders is historical fiction of the highest order--absolutely convincing in its period detail, filled with full-blooded characters who arouse one's deepest empathy, and driven by a story of striking immediacy. In 1665, the north of England remains untouched by the plague that is ravaging London. Then, in a small, close-knit community of lead miners and hill farmers, a bolt of cloth has no way of knowing that the damp fabric carries within its folds the deadly bubonic infection. Confronted with a scourge beyond remedy or understanding, the villagers turn in desperation to sorcery, herb lore, and murderous witch hunting--to no effect. Finally, led by a young and charismatic preacher, they elect to isolate themselves in a quarantine that may only deepen the tragedy. Told through the eyes of hard-working, inquisitive Anna Firth, who at age 18 must contend with the loss of her family and the disintegration of her community, Year of Wonders explores love and learning, fear and fanaticism, and the struggle of science and religion to interpret the world on the cusp of the modern era.

    Arthur Golden

    ...leaves us with the memory of vivid characters struggling in timeless human ways with the hardships confronting them....An engaging story.

    More Reviews and Recommendations

    Biography

    Journalist and author Geraldine Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2006 for March, a novel that imagines the wartime experiences of the absent father in Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women.

    More About the Author

    Customer Reviews

    Wonderful historical novelby ChickieD

    Reader Rating:
    See Detailed Ratings

    September 08, 2009: This really gave me a good idea what it was like with the plague. And the ending was not at all what I expected which if great for me. I liked it more that her prize winning novel "March" but "March" was good also

    A Young Maid's Story of Quarantine, Love, and the Plagueby NatalieTahoe

    Reader Rating:
    See Detailed Ratings

    August 31, 2009: A moving portrait of a woman from 1666 in a London town in which the town purposely quarantines themselves to ensure that the Plague does not extend and pass from their town to others. I enjoy Geraldine Brooks' work, particularly "People of the Book," and I would call this a close second to that work. Again, the author has blended fictional and actual events of a town in London, and has written the book from the perspective of a maid that served the town's minister through the quarantine. A simple reference of the maid in an actual letter from the actual minister of the town that quarantined themselves is what propelled the author to begin thinking about what life must have been like for this woman, and she creates a thorough account of that one year from this maid's eyes, drawing on events and actions that are documented from the actual town. I struggled only with the language of the way it was written, as it was written in the same speech as what someone from that time would speak as and write, but once you get used to it, you do not notice it again. It is a moving story, one that you cannot put down.


    More Customer Reviews