Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
41 Rating(s)
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
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Bel Canto

Author: Ann Patchett

Narrator: Anna Fields

Unabridged: 11 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 08/03/2004

Synopsis

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award • Winner of the Orange Prize • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • New York Times Readers’ Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century""Bel Canto is its own universe. A marvel of a book."" —Washington Post Book WorldNew York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett’s spellbinding novel about love and opera, and the unifying ways people learn to communicate across cultural barriers in times of crisisSomewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.Patchett's lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.

About Ann Patchett

It seems that some people are just natural born authors. American author, Ann Patchett, is one of those people. She was born in Los Angeles, California in 1963 to a police captain and a nurse, who divorced when Ann was a young girl. Her mother remarried and moved the family to Nashville, Tennessee in 1969.

Ann attended St Bernard Academy school for girls in Nashville, then attended Sarah Lawrence College, followed by the Iowa Writer's Workshop at University of Iowa and Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It was Provincetown where she wrote her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, followed by Taft, The Magician's Assistant, Bel Canto, Run, State of Wonder, and Commonwealth. Three of her books are non-fiction......Truth and Beauty, What Now?, and This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Her first children's book came in 2019, Lambslide, and was beautifully illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. Her books have been translated into more than 30 languages.

After winning numerous literary awards and being on bestseller lists, Ann co-founded her own bookstore, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee with Karen Hayes. She currently lives in Nashville with her husband, Karl VanDevender, and their dog Sparky.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lucy on March 23, 2009

This book came highly recommended, and once I started reading, I kept thinking I had already but couldn't, for the life of me, remember how it ended. Turns out, it only seemed familiar to me because it is based on a real life experience. In 1995, the president of Peru and many of his guests were tak......more

Goodreads review by Fabian on April 10, 2020

Holy crap! This "1-Dayer" deserves applause & praise indeed as it will surely stay with you like some truly terrific (& best yet, catchy) song for days, for weeks to come. What happens when terrorists take over a party held in honor of a Japanese businessman at the house of the Vice President of some......more

Goodreads review by Taufiq on February 18, 2025

If you were locked in a room with a stranger without knowing when you'd be let out, you'd likely become good friends, and if the stranger were of the opposite sex, you might even become romantic partners. This is because humans are social creatures. When loneliness sweeps over, the way to solve it i......more

Goodreads review by Canadian Jen on July 21, 2016

How did Patchett do this? A seemingly horrifying event turned into a mystical one. Where lines of good vs evil are blurred. Where time is suspended. It's a birthday party gala in South America. The guest of honour, a powerful Japanese figurehead, almost didn't make it himself except for the soprano w......more

Goodreads review by Danielle on August 26, 2009

This is one of my top five favorite books. Bel Canto made me a devoted Patchett fan, although her other work hasn't quite stood up to the high expectations this one set for her. Just to set the scene, I read this book while on a three week trip through Europe. Travelling by train, I had plenty of ti......more

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