Home (Oprah's Book Club): A Novel
Home (Oprah's Book Club): A Novel book cover

Home (Oprah's Book Club): A Novel

Paperback – August 4, 2020

Price
$10.75
Format
Paperback
Pages
336
Publisher
Picador Paper
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1250784025
Dimensions
5.35 x 0.89 x 8.34 inches
Weight
9.8 ounces

Description

“Remarkable . . . an even stronger accomplishment than Gilead. ” ― Claire Messud, The New York Review of Books “An exquisite, often ruefully funny meditation on redemption.” ― Megan O'Grady, Vogue “An anguished pastoral, a tableau of decency and compassion that is also an angry and devastating indictment of moral cowardice and unrepentant, unacknowledged sin. . . . . Beautiful.” ― A. O. Scott, The New York Times Book Review “Rich and resonant . . . Gilead and Home fit with and around each other perfectly, each complete on its own, yet enriching and enlivening the other. But both are books of such beauty and power.” ― Emily Barton, Los Angeles Times “Marilynne Robinson is so powerful a writer that she can reshape how we read.” ― Mark Athitakis, Chicago Sun-Times “ Home begins simply, eschewing obvious verbal fineness, and slowly grows in luxury--its last fifty pages are magnificently moving. . . . Powerful.” ― James Wood, The New Yorker “When Marilynne Robinson writes a new book, it's an event.” ― Pat MacEnulty, Charlotte Observer Marilynne Robinson is the recipient of a 2012 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama, for "her grace and intelligence in writing." She is the author of Gilead , winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Home , winner of the Orange Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Lila , winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her first novel, Housekeeping , won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Robinson's nonfiction books include The Givenness of Things , When I Was a Child I Read Books , Absence of Mind, The Death of Adam , and Mother Country . She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Features & Highlights

  • A
  • NEW YORK TIMES
  • BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST •
  • A NEW YORK TIMESE NOTABLE BOOK
  • WINNER OF
  • THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
  • BOOK PRIZE
  • A WASHINGTON POST
  • BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
  • A LOS ANGELES TIMES BEST
  • BOOK OF THE YEAR
  • A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
  • BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
  • “[Robinson's] prose is our flight out, a keen instrument of vision and transcendence.” ―O, the Oprah Magazine
  • Hailed as "incandescent," "magnificent," and "a literary miracle" (
  • Entertainment Weekly
  • ), hundreds of thousands of readers were enthralled by Marilynne Robinson's
  • Gilead
  • . Now Robinson returns with a brilliantly imagined retelling of the prodigal son parable, set at the same moment and in the same Iowa town as
  • Gilead
  • .
  • A luminous and healing book about families, family secrets, and faith from one of America's most beloved and acclaimed authors
  • .The Reverend Boughton's hell-raising son, Jack, has come home after twenty years away. Artful and devious in his youth, now an alcoholic carrying two decades worth of secrets, he is perpetually at odds with his traditionalist father, though he remains his most beloved child. As Jack tries to make peace with his father, he begins to forge an intense bond with his sister Glory, herself returning home with a broken heart and turbulent past.
  • Home
  • is a luminous and healing book about families, family secrets, and faith from one of America's most beloved and acclaimed authors.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(1K)
★★★★
25%
(835)
★★★
15%
(501)
★★
7%
(234)
23%
(769)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

Love this series!

So very happy to read this entire series! Characters are complex and fascinating. Love Robinson! Can be read separately, but even richer if you read the whole series.
1 people found this helpful
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Not worth the hype!

Dark and sad. Not sure I get all of the rave reviews. Writing about how alcoholics destroy their lives is not a new story and not particularly creative. Did not motivate me to read another of hers.
1 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Moving, but sad

I read Home after having read Gilead. Home is extremely well written and very readable. What's more, the plot has more surprises than I expected.

Frankly, I thought Gilead was a better book. However, I'd certainly recommend Home if you enjoyed Home.
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Hard to get through

While the writing was good, this book literally dragged on and on. There are no chapter breaks in the entire book so it almost feels like one long run on thought. I thought the characters didn't really come alive based on the dialogue. I always finish books that I start. This was a chore to finish.
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Yikes

This is one of the worst books I've ever read. It's like the author got writer's block, but insisted on writing something, anything, anyway. There's so little plot that it feels like the majority of the book is descriptions of colors/seasons/plants/furniture/food/clothes/books. Toward the end, I was practically laughing every time a character said something along the lines of, "Let's not talk about this anymore." I think it's the most-often repeated line in the book. Nearly every conversation involves a character saying one thing that might be construed as upsetting, and then another character shuts the conversation down. There is usually some crying involved as well. Then you have to wait for a conversation to start up again, only for that one to be shut down too. The only thing I got from it was a deep sense of gratitude that my home is not like this one.
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Did not like

I could not ‘get into’ the story so stopped reading it
✓ Verified Purchase

Slow

Did not hold my interest
✓ Verified Purchase

Bland and anticlimactic

After reading the description, I was excited to read this book and discover family secrets. In fact, despite it having a slow start, I kept reading...waiting, and reading, positive it was going to get interesting. Sad to report it never did...the excitement and thrill was as elusive as Jack Boughton.
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Not my favorite

Boring from the beginning for me. Never was able to finish it
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Awesome

Love it. Thanks.