About this title: Venturing beyond all limits--in relationships, physical challenge, and in sexual behavior--there is a point where oblivion is the only outcome. Full of Winton's lyrical genius for conveying physical sensation, "Breath" is a rich and atmospheric coming-of-age tale.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 2008-05-27
ISBN-13:9780374116347ISBN:0374116342
Description: Like New. Like new hardcover in excellent condition with dust jacket intact, no writing, non-smoking home, clean text, binding tight, Christian business. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Picador USA
Date Published: 2009-05-26
ISBN-13:9780312428396ISBN:0312428391
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780312428396. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780312428396ISBN:0312428391
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780241015308ISBN:0241015308
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780241015308ISBN:0241015308
Description: Very Good. VERY GOOD OVERALL CONDITION-TRUSTED DEVON (UK) BASED SELLER-IN STOCK-SENT WITHIN 1 WORKING DAY-AVAILABLE BY EMAIL FOR QUERIES-NO QUIBBLE REFUND IF NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED- read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PAN MACMILLAN Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780330455725ISBN:0330455729
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 256 pages. Bruce pike can hear the sea at night and longs to go to the shore. when he befriends loonie, his small town's wild boy, that dream is realized. together, intoxicated by the treacherous power of the waves and by the immortality of youth, the two boys defy all limits and rules. (Paperback) read more
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780374116347. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780374116347ISBN:0374116342
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: PAN MACMILLAN Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780330455718ISBN:0330455710
Description: BRAND NEW HARDBACK. 215 pages. Bruce pike, or 'pikelet', has lived all his short life in a tiny sawmilling town from where the thundering sea can be heard at night. he longs to be down there on the beach, amidst the pounding waves, but for some reason his parents forbid him. it's only when he befriends loonie, the local wild boy, that he finally defies them. (Hardback) read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: HarperCollins, Toronto
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781554682294ISBN:1554682290
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. Hardcover in dust jacket. 8vo. First Canadian edition of this award-winning novel. Book and jacket are in Fine, unread condition. 218 pp. In protective Mylar. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Picador, London
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780330455718ISBN:0330455710
Description: Fine/Fine. 9780330455718 Signed by Author Bright, tight, unmarked except for signature and unread. Fine jacket protected since purchase. Boldly signed to the title page. read more
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: 2008
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. Signed by Author First British Edition. The most recent novel by the author of THE RIDERS and DIRT MUSIC, the very well-received story of two Western Australia boys who fall into the enigmatic thrall of a veteran big-wave surfer. Includes a separate Sampler which prints an extract from the novel. Fine/Fine. Signed by Winton on the title page. read more
"Having been raised in a family of girls (even our pets were female), I appreciate that rare "good read" that puts me so completely inside the head of a boy or man that I feel I completely understand where he's coming from. Tim Winton succeeded in this tale of two boys growing up in an Australian town. The boys fall under the spell of the ocean and a reckless hippy surfer, and learn about the addictive power of adrenaline and risk taking. Having learned the same thing when I got hooked on skydiving at the age of 17, I think Winton does a fine job of describing the difficulty of balancing the desire to take it to the limit and yet emerge without having broken your neck. (Hint: Some people find themselves bargaining, "I'm OK with breaking a small bone, just not the neck.")"
"If ever a voice came through loud and clear on a page it is that of Pikelet, protagonist of Tim Winton's 'Breath'. From page one, I could hear his boyish, Australian accent, and that of his sometime-friend, the half-mad Loonie, his quiet Kentish parents, the boys' friend, the self-centred surfer Sando who only lives to push himself to extremes and only seems to respect those who do likewise and Sando's wounded, angry American partner, Eve.
The sense of place is tremendous. I've never been to Australia but I could feel, hear, smell the muddy river where the boys learn to swim and their sleepy, small town life; the passages about the sea and the surfing, especially, are remarkable, the excitement, terror, danger, vividly drawn.
I didn't expect to enjoy this book at all having little interest in rural Australia and even less in surfing but in the end, I read it in three evenings. It's astonishingly readable, riveting and compelling. My only reservation - the reason I give it 4 stars not five - is that the ending, when they boys have grown and parted, felt rather rushed, as if the author had lost interest but felt obliged to finish.
I should add a warning too, since some might find the extreme and sleazy sexual relationship with an underage boy in the last third of the story a little off-putting, especially after the joyful innocence of the preceding chapters. It's entirely in place within the story, especially considering the disturbed nature of that character, but I do feel some readers might want advance warning about it."
"All around the world we see native novels that just quintessentialy get the places they portray. If you think of novels you love, often there is a really strong sense of place, and you feel as if you're there as soon as you begin to read.
I know of only one author who simply gets Australia in this fashion. And he is Tim Winton. Even shut here in my house on a rainy night, I can feel the sand, hear the waves, see the sun - and fittingly - I can breathe the beach.
Winton's got a real winner here. Sentimental in the best of ways, this part fictional memoir, part gripping drama, has all the elements we've come to expect from Tim Winton, superbly crafted with his practiced ease.
It's a relaxing book, it's at times a confronting book, but it is NEVER, NEVER, a dull book. Gripping from start to finish, Breath has got to be one of Winton's best.
Just please, not seven years between this and the next one Tim. I don't think we would cope waiting that long again!"
"Australian writer Tim Winton's novel is one that you can devour in one sitting for it will pull you down into it like the undertow that this fantastic writer describes with such breathtaking beauty. We see the events unfold through the eyes of Bruce, now a gnarly paramedic in his 50's who recalls events that transpired when he was a budding teenager in the small town of Sawyer, Australia.
The novel begins with Bruce and a woman partner answering an emergency call from a distraught family whose teenaged son apparently has committed suicide by hanging. Then the narrator jumps back in time to his youth and talks for many pages about his friend Loonie and their strange relationship-- a sort of hero worship on the part of Bruce-- with an exotic former surfing champion Sando who pushes the boys to newer and more dangerous heights as they take on more and more difficult waves as they strive to rise from being just ordinary. Then there is Sando's lonely American wife Eva (former ski champion) who takes Bruce from surfing to sex with an edge.
BREATH is a strange novel indeed. If you are wondering what a teenager's suicide has to do with all this surfing on the Australia coast, as I was, just be patient for Mr. Winton ties up all the loose ends with a powerful wallop. The novel is a coming-of-age novel about sexual awakening, the danger associated with the emotions if they are left to run rampant when you are thirteen or fourteen, the scars that remain in adulthood.
At times a difficult novel but so wonderfully written and the title Breath permeates all aspects of the story. 4.5 stars if I could give them."
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