BookBrowse Reviews Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres

BookBrowse:

Dazzling. . .a fabulous book in the tradition of Tolstoy and Dickens. Historical Fiction

From the book jacket: de Bernières (author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin) gives us his long-awaited new novel. Huge, resonant, lyrical, filled with humor and pathos, a novel about the political and personal costs of war, and of love–between men and women, between friends and between those who are driven to be enemies. It is the story of a small coastal town in South West Anatolia in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire told in the richly varied voices of the people – Christians and Muslims of Turkish and Greek and Armenian descent – whose lives are rooted there, intertwined for untold years.

Opinion:

When I first recommended Birds Without Wings in August 2004 (in hardcover) I wrote. 'it seems almost unfair to the other books in this week's line up to have to be in the company of 'Birds Without Wings', Louis de Bernières's first book since Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

However, the overwhelmingly positive reviews did not appear to translate into the same success in the USA that the book had achieved in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand (where it sat on the bestseller lists for some time) - which is all the more reason for me to tell you about it now that it has just been released in paperback - to make sure that you don't miss out on this very exceptional book! 

'This is one of the great novels about the early 20th century and the emerging modern world, an epic of human disaster, on small and grand scales.' - The New Zealand Herald.

'Dazzling. . .a fabulous book in the tradition of Tolstoy and Dickens. . . . So joyous and heartbreaking, so rich and musical and wise, that reading it is like discovering anew the enchanting power of fiction.' - The San Francisco Chronicle

This review first ran in the July 20, 2005 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.

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