blackbird house
Registered by 
Into-the-Blue
of Stade, Niedersachsen Germany on 9/1/2010
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
Into-the-Blue of Stade, Niedersachsen Germany on 9/1/2010 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
4 journalers for this copy...
Welcome to Bookcrossing. Thank you for catching and making a journal entry for this book! I hope you enjoy it and will consider exploring this site and possibly joining. It's free and loads of fun, as you can track your released books in their travels, possibly all over the world! Please let us know that you've found the book and where you might re-release it when you're finished, so it can continue its journey. Please note that if you found two or more books together, they each have their own BCID#. Reading it is not required, though is encouraged. You may remain anonymous, but if you choose to join up I hope you will consider using me, Into-the-Blue, as the one who referred you. It's free and loads of fun.
................................................................................................................
Amazon says:
From the great May storm in 1778 when John Hadley and his sons slip the British blockade off the coast of Massachusetts only to disappear at sea, the lives of the inhabitants of the wooden farmhouse on the cape, stranded amid fields of sweet peas and wild fruit vines and red pear trees, coil and weave around each other, right up to the present. Young Isaac Hadley is more interested in his pet blackbird and the star charts in The Practical Navigator than in helping to build the house; and Violet, a century later, with her stained face and her own ghostly bird, reads the same book, and finds that it's easy enough to trick a learned man, though harder to catch one...Larkin Howard is ready to sell his soul to buy the farm, but meets a woman who hears the whales cry on the beach; while in another century the young Farrell boy sees more than he should on a snowy night...and the pond out back is still dark and unforgiving beneath its deceptively golden lilies. By the 1950s, the farmhouse is part of a community of steady men and wayward boys, and women who make jam but still feel the ghostly breath of Cora Hadley, with her green fingers. As a second century draws to a close and summer visitors from the cities take over the countryside, the house can barely hold all its ghosts, but the tragedies are not over...With a sense of place that is uncanny, and vividly real characters whose lives don't run smooth and whose stories loop together across space and time, this is a remarkable, haunting and accomplished work from a favourite novelist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
purchased via Ebay
published 2004 - PB - 225 pages
................................................................................................................
Amazon says:
From the great May storm in 1778 when John Hadley and his sons slip the British blockade off the coast of Massachusetts only to disappear at sea, the lives of the inhabitants of the wooden farmhouse on the cape, stranded amid fields of sweet peas and wild fruit vines and red pear trees, coil and weave around each other, right up to the present. Young Isaac Hadley is more interested in his pet blackbird and the star charts in The Practical Navigator than in helping to build the house; and Violet, a century later, with her stained face and her own ghostly bird, reads the same book, and finds that it's easy enough to trick a learned man, though harder to catch one...Larkin Howard is ready to sell his soul to buy the farm, but meets a woman who hears the whales cry on the beach; while in another century the young Farrell boy sees more than he should on a snowy night...and the pond out back is still dark and unforgiving beneath its deceptively golden lilies. By the 1950s, the farmhouse is part of a community of steady men and wayward boys, and women who make jam but still feel the ghostly breath of Cora Hadley, with her green fingers. As a second century draws to a close and summer visitors from the cities take over the countryside, the house can barely hold all its ghosts, but the tragedies are not over...With a sense of place that is uncanny, and vividly real characters whose lives don't run smooth and whose stories loop together across space and time, this is a remarkable, haunting and accomplished work from a favourite novelist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
purchased via Ebay
published 2004 - PB - 225 pages
Journal Entry 2 by Into-the-Blue at -- Per Post geschickt/ Persönlich weitergegeben --, Niedersachsen Germany on Sunday, April 17, 2011
Into-the-Blue at -- Per Post geschickt/ Persönlich weitergegeben --, Niedersachsen Germany on Sunday, April 17, 2011
Released 13 yrs ago (4/18/2011 UTC) at -- Per Post geschickt/ Persönlich weitergegeben --, Niedersachsen Germany
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
The book has been chosen by jumpingin via the Flora and Fauna International VBB Hope you will like it. Thanks for participating.
Arrived safely. Thanks so much!
The stories in this book are linked together by a house. Over its 200-year history, this small house sees happiness and tragedy. The stories of the people who have lived here are touching.
This book was chosen from bookstogive's General Literature VBB by wildflower37. Sent by surface mail today. Happy reading!
Thanks for sending this along. I am a fan of this author and can't resist a book with such an interesting backdrop of nature and history. I look forward to reading it.
This novel was written with language as lush as the land it describes. I deeply enjoyed the vision and scent of the sweet peas that are planted in the first chapter and wrap their way through and around the other characters' lives and observations just like the strong vines that they are. Each chapter of this book is a story of a different person or family who lives in Blackbird House, accompanied by their loves, their longings, their dreams and nightmares.
While beautifully written, and filled with captivating characters, I am rating only as a 3 because of my preference for a longer-term relationship with each character and storyline.
Will make available for a VBB or other form of sharing.
While beautifully written, and filled with captivating characters, I am rating only as a 3 because of my preference for a longer-term relationship with each character and storyline.
Will make available for a VBB or other form of sharing.
I chose this from bookstogive's wonderful General Literature VBB, and it arrived today. Looks great! I'm very excited about this one. :) Thank you, wildflower37!!!
This book was my introduction to Alice Hoffman, and I really enjoyed it and will likely seek out more of her work. I like her prose style -- simple, but lyrical and evocative at the same time.
In some ways, this book was a bit like a short story collection, but the stories are all bound to one another through a shared history of Blackbird House. There is also a generational aspect at work, as different generations of the same families appear throughout the book. The setting was richly drawn and the characters were realistic. Perhaps most impressively, I found each of the chapters equally compelling, although they were all very different from one another. I enjoyed the breadth of historical periods that were covered, from the late eighteenth century to the turn of the 21st century.
In some ways, this book was a bit like a short story collection, but the stories are all bound to one another through a shared history of Blackbird House. There is also a generational aspect at work, as different generations of the same families appear throughout the book. The setting was richly drawn and the characters were realistic. Perhaps most impressively, I found each of the chapters equally compelling, although they were all very different from one another. I enjoyed the breadth of historical periods that were covered, from the late eighteenth century to the turn of the 21st century.
Journal Entry 10 by ReallyBookish at Oxford Park in North Wales, Pennsylvania USA on Saturday, April 18, 2015
Released 9 yrs ago (4/18/2015 UTC) at Oxford Park in North Wales, Pennsylvania USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
I am going to go check out this park on a wonderful, unseasonably warm spring day. I have never been here before, so am not sure what it offers in the way of release spots, but I have three books and an adventurous spirit in hand and will see what happens. :)
