Unaccustomed Earth | 
 enlarge | Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Category: Book
Buy New: $27.99
New (5) Collectible (2) from $27.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  97 reviews
Sales Rank: 719492
Format: Import
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0676979343
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780676979343
ASIN: 0676979343
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: NEW
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Product Description
Knopf Canada is proud to welcome this bestselling, Pulitzer Prize—winning author with eight dazzling stories that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life.
In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father who carefully tends her garden–where she later unearths evidence of a love affair he is keeping to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a couple’s romantic getaway weekend takes a dark turn at a party that lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a woman eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories–a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love and fate–we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one fateful winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.
Unaccustomed Earth is rich with the author’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is the work of a writer at the peak of her powers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 92 more reviews...
 Haunting and Dazzling Stories August 20, 2008
As always, Lahiri's short stories resonate with me in a truly hauntingly romantic way. Her prose and character development, while some complain are overdeveloped and stagnant or lackluster, are stunningly beautiful in my opinion. Yes, it is true that she 'recycles' bits of her characters into different stories and even novels, but the way in which she does so doesn't alienate the reader, it (at least in my case) makes them fall in love with the now familiar characters. Her writing is transcendent in ways I can't explain.
Dazzling Stories August 18, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
These are careful, closely observed stories that the author illuminates with telling details: the way a daughter reminds a widower of his dead wife, or the silences that tense the tenuous link between parent and child. These stories focus on relationships, how they start, and how they end, but mostly about the moments and gestures that mark their stages. These stories read easily. Still, I went back and read them again, for the details that Lahiri sprinkles, like jewels hidden in a corner bookcase.
The short story is a more perfect form than the novel. Every word, every sentence is important. Novels sell better, but the short story satisfies in a way that the novel cannot. I marveled at Lahiri's artistry, how she employs language in a unique way. She does not dazzle with incandescent prose, but her honest humanity shines forth in her writing. I had never heard of her before I started this book, but her stories moved me in a deeply personal way. I encountered emotions that I have felt myself, but never articulated. This is the mark of good literature.
I enjoyed every story August 17, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
There are no happy endings , yet it is not all sad.I completely enjoyed it.
Beautifully written August 14, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I LOVED this book of short stories. I read several reviews that Interpreter of Maladies was better, but I didn't feel this was the case. I thought this was even better; very beautifully written!
Excellent book August 13, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a lovely collection of short stories that stays with you long after you've read the last page. This is Lahiri's best by far...same simple yet searing language, but the observations are so true they take the wind out of you.
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