Bought at a thrift store for release. Trade paperback in very good condition. From the back:

"With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning."

Lyrical language, layers of story and complicated characters helped considerably by watching the movie first. If I had picked this up without watching the movie, I'm not sure I would have continued past the first few chapters. This is the type of literary novel that a reader has to persevere and stitch the pieces of story together as the author seems to throw them randomly at you. In fact, the author carefully crafts the story, but the reader needs to do more work than straight forward fiction...one of the reasons I don't read much literary stuff. Call me lazy, but I work at work and read for entertainment. Those literary books that I do read, I usually enjoy for the language and craft rather than the story, but this one satisfied both needs...once I got past the first couple of layers.

Put out on curb with 100 books marked FREE.
This one and 75 others taken during the day.

Whoever finds it, I hope you journal it (you can do so anonymously, if you don't want to join.) If you do want to join, feel free to tell the powers that be, that MarysGirl sent you their way.

Good luck little book!