return to home
 
 
          Bookmark and Share        Email
 
  This Week's Recommendations    |     Hardcovers Coming Soon    |     Paperbacks Coming Soon    |     Recent Hardcovers    |     Recent Paperbacks
   Genres   |    Settings   |    Time Periods   |    Themes   |    Favorites   |    Award Winners   |    Book Finder   |    Surprise Me!   |    Tag cloud
   Recent Interviews    |     All Interviews    |     Author Bios    |     Author Websites    |     Pronunciation Guide
   Free Newsletters   |    Wordplay   |    Book Giveaway   |    BookBrowse Polls   |    Literary Quotes   |    Personality Quiz   |    Gift Membership
   Recent Membership Magazines    |     Magazine Archives     |     Invite the Author    |     My Reading List    |     First Impressions    |     My Account
   Editor's Blog    |     Best Reader Reviews    |     Book News    |     Meet the Reviewers    |     Stay In Touch
   About Us   |    Tour   |    Member Benefits   |    Join   |    Gift Memberships   |    Library Subscriptions   |    FAQ   |    People Say   |    Contact Us
Search BookBrowse
Suggested Links
This Book's Themes:
Free Twice-Monthly Newsletters
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society

Win This Book!




Sarah's Key
by Tatiana de Rosnay


'Masterly and compelling, highly recommended.'
- Library Journal


Enter To Win Now!

State by State

wordplay
Solve this clue:
"N I T Mother O I"

and be entered to win....
New Author
Interviews
Paul Auster
A video interview with Paul Auster about his 2009 book Invisible
Malla Nunn
A brief but revealing Q&A with Malla Nunn, author of A Beautiful Place to Die, the first in a new series set in 1950s South Africa starring Detective Emmanuel Cooper.
Kate DiCamillo
Kate DiCamillo and Yoko Tanaka, the illustrator of The Magician's Elephant, discuss the writing and illustrating of the book. In a separate Q&A, Kate discusses The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
Brigid Pasulka
Brigid Pasulka explains why she wrote her first novel, A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True, which is set in Poland during World War II, and in Kraków 50 years later.
   Summary and Book Reviews

Heir To The Glimmering World: Summary and book reviews of Heir To The Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick, plus links to an excerpt from Heir To The Glimmering World and a biography of Cynthia Ozick.

Heir To The Glimmering World Heir To The Glimmering World
by Cynthia Ozick
Hardcover: Sep 2004,
320 pages.
Paperback: Sep 2005,
320 pages.

Publication information
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Write the First Review!

Author Biography
Author Interview
Books by this Author
Critics' Opinion:  
Readers' Rating: 
About BookBrowse Rankings
Buy This Book
Themes Members Only Read-Alikes Members Only Add to Reading List  Members Only BookBrowse Review Members Only
Book Summary

Cynthia Ozick is an American master at the height of her powers in Heir to the Glimmering World, a grand romantic novel of desire, fame, fanaticism, and unimaginable reversals of fortune. Ozick takes us to the outskirts of the Bronx in the 1930s, as New York fills with Europe's ousted dreamers, turned overnight into refugees. Rose Meadows unknowingly enters this world when she answers an ambiguous want ad for an "assistant" to a Herr Mitwisser, the patriarch of a large, chaotic household. Rosie, orphaned at eighteen, has been living with her distant relative Bertram, who sparks her first erotic desires. But just as he begins to return her affection, his lover, a radical socialist named Ninel (Lenin spelled backward), turns her out. And so Rosie takes refuge from love among refugees of world upheaval.

Cast out from Berlin's elite, the Mitwissers live at the whim of a mysterious benefactor, James A'Bair. Professor Mitwisser is a terrifying figure, obsessed with his arcane research. His distraught wife, Elsa, once a prominent physicist, is becoming unhinged. Their willful sixteen-year-old daughter runs the household: the exquisite, enigmatic Anneliese. Rosie's place here is uncertain, and she finds her fate hanging on the arrival of James. Inspired by the real Christopher Robin, James is the Bear Boy, the son of a famous children's author who recreated James as the fanciful subject of his books. Also a kind of refugee, James runs from his own fame, a boy adored by the world but grown into a bitter man. It is Anneliese's fierce longing that draws James back to this troubled house, and it is Rosie who must help them all resist James's reckless orbit. Ozick lovingly evokes these perpetual outsiders thrown together by surprising chance. The hard times they inherit still hold glimmers of past hopes and future dreams. Heir to the Glimmering World is a generous delight.

Book Reviews

BookBrowse
This isn't a book to read for the plot so much as for the thoughts that it generates.
Full Review
 Members Only (members only, 305 words).


 Publishers Weekly
Erudite exposition is packed into the book, so that character study and discourse occasionally grind the plot to a halt. Edifying and evocative, if often daunting, this is a concentrated slice of eccentric life.

 Booklist - Donna Seaman
Ozick brilliantly dramatizes the conflict between theology and science, various modes of mythmaking and survival, and the hot drive to dissent, to subvert, to fly from what all men accept! 

 Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. Perhaps the fullest treatment yet of the European intellectual's flight from Hitler's Germany...one of Ozick's most interesting [works].

 The New York Times - John Leonard
In her typically audacious new novel, Heir to the Glimmering World, Cynthia Ozick braids at least three and probably four ghostly glimmers and ''phantom eels'' of thought into a single luminous lariat -- or maybe a hangman's noose. 

 The Washington Post - James Sallis
Valéry said that a work of art should always teach us that we have not seen what we see. That is a part of what young Rose Meadows comes to know as she emerges from the Mitwissers' life into her own. Living as we all do among unwise folk, nonetheless she also has lived for a time, and lived vividly, in a wise, quietly magical book. As have we readers.

 Library Journal - Starr E. Smith
Though known mainly for short stories distinguished by graceful language, Ozick here demonstrates her facility as a novelist, successfully mixing themes of faith, identity, and art into a crazy salad of a plot set in New York City during the Great Depression....This witty book will appeal to admirers of the fanciful tales in Ozick's Puttermesser Papers and to readers seeking well-written novels with intellectual depth. Recommended for most collections. 

 The Wall Street Journal - Merle Rubin
In language aglow with fierce wit and passionate intensity. . .[Ozick's book] has all the hallmarks of a permanent work of literature.

 Newsday - James Marcus
A novel as scintillating as this one makes the world infinitely new.

 Alice Munro
An irresistible read.  A trove of wonderfully imagined characters, brilliantly written - a dazzling performance.

 Ann Patchett
A cause for celebration in the world of literature.  Here we have a heroine to love, a story we can't let go of, gorgeous sentences, and ideas to wrestle with.  I didn't just read this book, I devoured it.


This Book's Themes:
Read-Alikes:
Other books by this author
Buy This Book:

Become a Member
Editor's Choice
  •  Nov 07 
  •  Nov 05 
  •  Nov 03 
The Children's Book
A.S. Byatt
A spellbinding novel that spans the Victorian era through the World War I years, and centers around a famous children's book author and the passions, betrayals, and secrets that tear apart the people she loves.
A Gate at the Stairs
Lorrie Moore
A novel on the anxiety and disconnection of post-9/11 America, on the insidiousness of racism, the blind-sidedness of war, and the recklessness thrust on others in the name of love.
Half Broke Horses
Jeannette Walls
Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle was "nothing short of spectacular" (Entertainment Weekly). Now, in Half Broke Horses, she brings us the story of her grandmother, told in a first-person voice that is authentic, irresistible, and triumphant.
Al Capone Shines My Shoes
Gennifer Choldenko
Moose and the cons are about to get a lot closer in this much-anticipated sequel to Al Capone Does My Shirts. Recommended for ages 10+.
This Is Where I Leave You
Jonathan Tropper
A riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind—whether we like it or not.
One Month Free
Recent Reader Reviews
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
I absolutely loved the books "Case Histories" and "One Good Turn" by Kate Atkinson and could not wait for the 3rd book in the ... read more
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
A gripping and fascinating adventure of one young girl's obsession with knowing who her parents really were/are. The delving into the idea of ... read more
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
I borrowed Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell from the library, hoping it would be a lively story of two feuding wizards. Instead, the author spends ... read more
RSS feed More...  
Most Viewed This Week
1. Brooklyn Bridge
Karen Hesse
2. The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
3. Three Cups of Tea
David O. Relin, Greg Mortenson
4. A Child Called It
Dave Pelzer
5. The Notebook
Nicholas Sparks
More...
Book Club Recommendations
Stalin's Children
by Owen Matthews
Paperback (Sep/09)
Home
by Marilynne Robinson
Paperback (Sep/09)
The Blue Star
by Tony Earley
Paperback (Aug/09)
Say You're One of Them
by Uwem Akpan
Paperback (Jul/09)
More...
First Impressions
Members read and review books often months before they're published. See what they think in First Impressions!
The Possibility of Everything
by Hope Edelman
           (Sep/09)
State by State
by Matt Weiland & Sean Wilsey (editors)
           (Oct/09)
Cleopatra's Daughter
by Michelle Moran
           (Sep/09)
Serena
by Ron Rash
           (Oct/09)
The Book of Illumination
by Mary Ann Winkowski
           (Oct/09)
More...
   Most Recent Blog Entries
Autumn Reading by Elizabeth Strout
It Takes All Kinds of Readers
Steampunk for Beginners by Cherie Priest
Pride Falls by Elizabeth Berg
rss  RSS   rss  subscribe
  Latest BookBrowse News
Borders to close 200 Waldenbooks outlets (Nov 06 2009)
As Barnes & Noble prepares to close all but two of their B. Dalton mall stores by January 2010, Borders announced that they will close about 200 of the... Full Story
NPR & ABA Partner to Share Book Coverage (Nov 05 2009)
In a joining of like minds, NPR and ABA have partnered to provide thoughtful bestsellers and unique book coverage to readers, both on NPR.org and... Full Story
rss RSS feed More...
BookBrowse Poll
Q: When do you listen to audio books?
I don't listen to audio books
While walking
While doing household chores
While exercising
While working
In the car
At other times
Select Any That Apply
HOME Submissions | Advertising | Showcase | Library Subscriptions | Media Inquiries | Reviewers | Contact Us |   Email this page to a friend
addall.com - external link
Visit AddAll.com to compare and save at 41 bookstores!
Searching for used books? Search 20,000+ dealers!
 
Compare music prices  |  Compare movie prices
One Percent