A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
1 Rating(s)
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
Club: $14.99

A Thousand Acres

Author: Jane Smiley

Narrator: C. J. Critt

Unabridged: 14 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/29/1996

Synopsis

Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Jane Smiley’s spellbinding novel also headed best-seller lists for many months. A Thousand Acres is the powerful, mythic story of an American farm family and the land that nourishes and consumes its members. Three daughters and their husbands are pulled into a tangle of love, jealousy, and fear when their father, Larry Cook, grows too old to manage the family’s fertile thousand acre farm. As each couple struggles with their own tragedies and challenges, they know their father is judging them in light of the weighty inheritance that hovers within their reach. The Cook family, and the farm community around them, are part of a mosaic that is as enduring as the fences and fields of the broad midwestern landscape. But this endurance exacts an immense price from them in return. You will find that this nationally-acclaimed, breathtaking story, in a stirring narration by C.J. Critt, is an unforgettable listening experience.

About Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley is the author of many novels, works of nonfiction, and books for young adults, including A Thousand Acres and the Last Hundred Years trilogy, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Glen on February 10, 2017

When this book was chosen by our book club for this month's theme of "tragedy," I approached reading it with some trepidation. There are a number of things that I don't care for in literature, and one of them is the family drama which centers on the drama as drama for its own sake, rather than to sa......more

Goodreads review by Violet on April 13, 2016

Smiley uses King Lear as her framework for this novel. We have the ailing patriarch, a kingdom in decline and his three contesting daughters. And as you’re reading you’re often wondering to what extent Smiley is going to mirror the Shakespeare plot. The plot of King Lear would be melodramatic vaudev......more

Goodreads review by Jaline on September 28, 2017

For three generations, the Cook family have worked hard to create a thriving agriculture operation, draining swamplands, turning the weeds and grass into rich fertile soil. As time went on, their holdings eventually reached what felt like a magic number to the family – a thousand acres. Larry Cook de......more

Goodreads review by Jonathan on November 17, 2016

In the beginning I felt there were a lot of characters to keep track of, but while some names are mentioned later on that I did not recall that was not actually a problem for me. I only realized while reading other reviews that this was a spin off of King Lear and that helps explain why some of the......more

Goodreads review by Paul on March 28, 2016

SLATTED CORNCRIBS AND MARY JANES It’s kind of slightly fun to see how Jane Smiley gets all the lurid plot of King Lear into her tale of the decline and fall of an Iowa farming family. For instance Out, vile jelly! Where is thy lustre now? the famous scene where the Earl of Gloucester is blinded onstag......more

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