Skip to content
Account Login Winnipeg Toll-Free: 1-800-561-1833 SK Toll-Free: 1-877-506-7456 Contact & Locations

parsed(2023-02-07) - pubdate: 8/2/2005
turn:
pub date: 1675749600
today: 1711602000, pubdate > today = false

nyp: 0;

Bel Canto

A Novel

February 7, 2023 | Trade paperback
ISBN: 9780060838720
$24.00
Reader Reward Price: $21.60 info
Out of stock. Available to order from publisher. We will confirm shipping time when order has been placed.
Checking Availibility...

Description

Winner of the 2002 Orange Prize for Fiction.

In Bel Canto, Ann Patchett weaves a tale of music, romance, hostage-taking and diplomacy. Character and relationship driven, it is a novel that could be violent, but is gentle; could be boring, but is intriguing; could be predictable, but is surprising. One of my favourite novels this year, it is a great read for summer or any time.

(Barb)

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gunwielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.

Ann Patchett was born in Los Angeles in 1963, the youngest daughter of her nurse mother and police officer father.

While attending Sarah Lawrence College, Patchett took fiction writing classes with Alan Gurganus, Russell Banks, and Grace Paley. She sold her first story to the Paris Review, where it was published before her graduation. Patchett then went on to attend the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop.

In 1990, Patchett won a residential fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It is there that she wrote her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, which received a James A. Michener/ Copernicus Award for a book in progress. In 1993, she received a Bunting Fellowship from the Mary Ingrahm Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College.

Patchett's second novel, Taft, was awarded the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best work of fiction in 1994. Her third novel, The Magician's Assistant, was short-listed for England's Orange Prize and earned her a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1994. In October of the same year, just three days after the official release of The Magician's Assistant, Patchett was awarded the Nashville Banner Tennessee Writer of the Year Award.

She has also written for numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine and Gourmet.

Ann Patchett's most recent novel,Bel Canto, won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Patchett currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

About this Author

Ann Patchett is the author of six novels, including Bel Canto (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize), and the nonfiction bestsellers What now? and Truth & Beauty. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is co-owner of Parnassus Books.

ISBN: 9780060838720
Format: Trade paperback
Pages: 336
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-02-07

Reviews

"Patchett's tragicomic novel--a fantasia of guns and Puccini and Red Cross negotiations--invokes the glorious, unreliable promises of art, politics, and love." -- New Yorker

"Elegantly alluring. . . . A novel that begins with a kiss and absolutely deserves one." -- Janet Maslin, New York Times

"One approaches the final pages with a heavy heart for several reasons, not the least of which being that this fine read has come to an end." -- Entertainment Weekly (A-)

"Bel Canto has all the qualities one has come to expect from a classic Ann Patchett novel: grace, beauty, elegance, and magic." -- Madison Smartt Bell

"Patchett's ability to evoke sense of place. . .is near magical in itself." -- Publishers Weekly

"A novel that showcases [Patchett's] profound understanding of the heart." -- BookForum

"This fluid and assured narrative, inspired by a real incident, demonstrates her growing maturity and mastery of form as she artfully integrates a musical theme within a dramatic story." -- Publisher's Weekly

"Bel Canto by Ann Patchett should be on the list of every literate music lover. The story is riveting, the participants breathe and feel and are alive, and throughout this elegantly-told novel, music pours forth so splendidly that the reader hears it and is overwhelmed by its beauty. Ann Patchett is a special writer who has written a special book." -- Lloyd Moss, WXQR

"The most romantic novel in years. A strange, terrific, spellcasting story." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"Bel Canto invites readers to explore new and unfamiliar territory, to take some emotional risks rather than stand with Rolland among those 'already saved.'" -- Chicago Tribune

"In more ways than one, Bel Canto is about finding beauty in unexpected places." -- New York Magazine

"The author has taken what could have been a variation on the Lord of the Flies scenario and fashions instead a 'Lord of the Butterflies,' a dreamlike fable in which the impulses toward beauty and love are shown to be as irrepressible as the instincts for violence and destruction." -- New York Magazine

"Patchett can be counted on to deliver novels rich in imaginative bravado and psychological nuance." -- Publishers Weekly

"You'll find a few hours of entertainment and maybe even a strange yearning to be kidnapped." -- Time Out New York

"A book that works both as a paean to art and beauty and a subtly sly comedy of manners." -- The New York Times

"Combining an unerring instinct for telling detail with the broader brushstrokes you need to tackle issues of culture and politics, Patchett creates a remarkably compelling chronicle of a multinational group of the rich and powerful held hostage for months." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Bel Canto moves elegantly through its paces, captors and captivates alike stumble on that most elusive liberty: the freedom to be." -- New York Daily News

"A provocative and enchanting look at the power art has to suspend real life and to create a better world, one in which the differences between people can be erased and the barriers to our best selves can be hurdled." -- Detroit Free Press

"Blissfully romantic... with engaging wit and brilliant writing about love, Patchett has crafted a seductive, romantically charged novel..." -- San Fransisco Chronicle

"Positively spellbinding." -- Seattle Times

"Bel Canto is its own universe. A marvel of a book." -- Washington Post Book World

If the product is in stock at the store nearest you, we suggest you call ahead to have it set aside for you, or you may place an order online and choose in-store pickup.