About this title: Patrick Wallingford, a TV reporter, is good looking, successful, and a hit with women. On an assignment, his hand is bitten off by a lion, making him into an instant media celebrity. He meets a childless woman who offers him the hand of her dead husband if he will impregnate her. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Date Published: 07/2001
ISBN-13:9780375506277ISBN:0375506276
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 336 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Date Published: 07/2001
ISBN-13:9780375506277ISBN:0375506276
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 336 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House, New York
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780375506277ISBN:0375506276
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Book Club Edition (BOMC). The dust jacket is in fine shape except for minor wrinkling at the top of the spine & very light edge wear. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books, New York
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780345463159ISBN:0345463153
Description: Good. No Jacket. The book is very solid with unmarked pages. The cover has minor shelf wear & moderate edge wear. The spine has a few light creases. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 2002
ISBN-13:9780345449344ISBN:0345449347
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 352 p. Audience: General/trade. Has light flairing on front right side of cover, has used store name stamped on top side of book and a small mark on inside on book, otherwise in good condition. read more
"I learned about television journalism & how the editors and anchors prefer sensational, traumatic, tragic short stories than longer events in context. I also learned about what happens when a limb is severed and another is attached--about how the nerves grow back and people have feelings where their limbs used to be and are no longer. It's called "phantom pain." I also learned about the Greenbay Packers team."
""Absurd just for the sake of it." That was my opinion of this book after my wife (who'd just finished reading it) asked what I thought a hundred pages in. But then the book's central relationship develops and it became apparent that all this absurdity did indeed have a purpose: the ways in which humans manage their grief are absurd and unruly. Indeed, the core of this novel is a meditation on grief. Often it's touching, sometimes cutting, definitely unique.
The problem, then, comes from a lack of focus. Far too many of this books pages are spent away from that core. A second plotline involving a hand surgeon begins the novel nearly as prominent as the main plot. However, it never fully develops and seems forgotten about halfway through. More to the point, it adds nothing to the main story.
I'm not an Irvingite; I've only read this and Garp, but the man has piqued my interest for sure."
"The only other John Irving book I've read completely was The World According to Garp, which I loved. This book I liked a lot, it was much easier to read than Garp but the story itself was not quite as great.. However it was still good- very entertaining. I liked the characters a lot, especially the doctor. There is a lot of sex in this book, which was somewhat awkward as I was reading it while subbing and I always worry someone will read over my shoulder.
The book is about a man who loses his hand while reporting news.. He gets a hand transplant and falls in love with donor's widow."
"I haven't read Irving in a while, but liked this book overall. Strange concept book about a man who lost a hand and got a new one sewn on years later. You not only looked at this guy's life but also his doctor's and the hand's, well the former owner & his wife!! Irving did some of that repetitive writing technique, is that just the way people write now a days? Are we not smart enough to remember from one page to the next? It wasn't as bad as the other book I read, but still."
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