So Big, Edna Ferber
So Big, Edna Ferber
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So Big

Author: Edna Ferber

Narrator: Karen Commins

Unabridged: 11 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/04/2019

Synopsis

Author Edna Ferber described the story of SO BIG as being about a "material man, son of his earth-grubbing, idealistic mother." Left an orphan at 19 years old in the late 1880s, Selina Peake needs to support herself. She leaves the city life she has known to become a teacher in the farming community of High Prairie, IL. Her father had told her that life is an adventure, and one should make the most of it.
Selina sees beauty everywhere, including in the fields of cabbages. She has a natural curiosity about farming and oversteps the woman's traditional role by having the audacity to ask the men questions. She soon marries Pervus DeJong, a farmer. Selina eagerly offers suggestions for operational improvements, but Pervus ignores her, preferring to use the unprofitable farming methods employed by his father.
Though she suffers many hardships, Selina always remembers the importance of beauty, and she admires those who exercise their creative talents. She tries to instill these views in her son Dirk and fights with her husband over the need for their child to get a full education. Once Dirk finishes college and starts work, will he retain Selina's values?
SO BIG was the first book to have the rare distinction of being the best-selling book of the year and win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

About Edna Ferber

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Edna Ferber (1885-1968) was a novelist, short-story writer, and playwright whose work served as the inspiration for numerous Broadway plays and Hollywood films, including Show Boat, Cimarron, Giant, Saratoga Trunk, and Ice Palace. She co-wrote the plays The Royal Family, Dinner at Eight, and Stage Door with George S. Kaufman and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel So Big.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Candi on January 26, 2018

"The more kinds of people you see, and the more things you do, and the more things that happen to you, the richer you are. Even if they’re not pleasant things. That’s living. Remember, no matter what happens, good or bad, it’s just so much — just so much velvet." Selina Peake’s father was a perceptiv......more

Goodreads review by Amber on January 16, 2012

In the three years I've worked in a bookstore, I've had ZERO customers ask for books by Edna Ferber. Dude. That is going to change. I am going to start by recommending it to everyone I know (Andrew's mom is reading it next, then Andrew) and then I am going to recommend it to customers. It's about Sel......more

Goodreads review by Steve on October 02, 2007

This was a very different, very enjoyable read for me. Thanks for nudging this now forgotten little gem my way, Susan. Your instincts for what I would like were, as always, unerring. So Big was Edna Ferber’s Pulitzer Prize winning book from 1924. Despite the accolades I didn’t know what to think goi......more

Goodreads review by JimZ on October 25, 2020

I really enjoyed the first half of this novel. I liked the character, Selina Peake De Jong, a lot. She went to a finishing school and was well-educated. She rather surprisingly married “beneath her” — she married a farmer whom she had initially met as his tutor. He had had a very limited education,......more

Goodreads review by Deyanne on January 06, 2017

Surprise. What a delightful experience to start a reading year with a "gem" if you will. Another formerly unread choice in our book group year of Pultizer Prize Winners, I truthfully did not hold high expectations. I have questioned whether or not the books we have already read have been dated and r......more

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