The Great Passage

Name: The Great Passage
Brand: Brilliance Audio
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Author: Shion Miura
ISBN: 9781536631876

Author: Shion Miura, Juliet Winters Carpenter

Narrator: Brian Nishii

Unabridged: 6 hr 39 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Published: 06/01/2017

Categories: Fiction, Coming Of Age, Humorous, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

An award-winning story of love, friendship, and the power of human connection. Kohei Araki believes that a dictionary is a boat to carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years of creating dictionaries, it's time for him to retire and find his replacement. He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime—a young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting antiquarian books and a background in linguistics—whom he swipes from his company's sales department.Along with an energetic, if reluctant, new recruit and an elder linguistics scholar, Majime is tasked with a career-defining accomplishment: completing The Great Passage, a comprehensive 2,900-page tome of the Japanese language. On his journey, Majime discovers friendship, romance, and an incredible dedication to his work, inspired by the words that connect us all.

About Shion Miura

Shion Miura, the daughter of a well-known Japanese classics scholar, started an online book-review column before she graduated from Waseda University. In 2000, she made her fiction debut with Kakuto suru mono ni mar (A Passing Grade for Those Who Fight), a novel based in part on her own experiences during her job hunt. In 2006, she won the Naoki Prize for her linked-story collection Mahoro ekimae Tada Benriken (The Handymen in Mahoro Town). Her other prominent novels include Kaze ga tsuyoku fuiteiru (The Wind Blows Hard), Kogure-so monogatari (The Kogure Apartments), and Ano ie ni kurasu yonin no onna (The Four Women Living in That House). Fune o amu (The Great Passage) received the Booksellers Award in Japan in 2012 and was developed into a major motion picture. She has also published more than fifteen collections of essays and is a manga aficionado.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Always on January 08, 2020

Kohei Araki has worked on dictionaries for all of his life and has a deep love for words and their various meanings. With his impending retirement, Araki must find a replacement to work on the dictionary that he has helped to start, an ambitious project undertaken by a department that is understaffe......more

Goodreads review by Liong on October 12, 2024

First of all, I thought this is a travel story. I was wrong and this is a story about making up a new dictionary title "Great Passage." This book tells about love, friendship, landlord, workmates, and jobs. 👩👨🧑👧👩‍🦰👨‍🦰👸🤴 The making process of this new dictionary by a publisher involves a few stories a......more

Goodreads review by Helen on June 13, 2017

How can a book about a small department at a publishing house creating a dictionary be so wonderful? Wrapped up in the main story about the creation of the dictionary there are three different stories about the people in the dictionary department. One is about a man who learns to connect with people......more

Goodreads review by Saadia on August 16, 2021

3.5 Stars Araki loved dictionaries and bought them from his pocket money. He wanted to become a physiologist or a scholar of the Japanese language so that his name could also come on a dictionary. Worked at Gembu Books for the last 37 years making dictionaries. Araki was retiring soon hence started l......more

Goodreads review by Tim on January 09, 2019

Warning: While I don’t go into many plot details, there are a few lines that hint at some developments. So, those wanting to know nothing about character development can consider this a slight spoiler warning. A while back I started my review of The Nakano Thrift Shop with the following: “This is the......more

Quotes

An Earphones Award Winner, Fiction"Brian Nishii is the perfect narrator for this audiobook... The book's translation combined with Nishii's narration makes the story sound and feel Japanese - there's a subtle choppiness, and certain word choices and phrases aren't what native English speakers would say - and it's all entirely fitting and charming....a unique and fascinating listen."—AudioFile Magazine“Mastery of words may not result in masterly communication, and a great dictionary, like a love story, is ‘the result of people puzzling over their choices’—a classic tension that has made The Great Passage a prizewinner in Japan, as well as both a successful feature film and an animated television series.” —The New York Times“Swirling with witty enchantment, The Great Passage proves to be, well, utterly great. Readers should be advised to get ready to sigh with delighted satisfaction and awe-inspiring admiration.” —Booklist (starred review)