Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders

A Novel

De: Julianna Baggott

Narrado por: Jodi Carlisle

"A mesmerizing tale of star-crossed love and of the dark secrets in a fracturing family . . . This novel is so full of wonders that it leaves you haunted, amazed, and, like every great read, irrevocably changed." -- Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

The reclusive Harriet Wolf, revered author and family matriarch, has a final confession: a love story. Years after her death, as her family comes together one last time, the mystery of Harriet's life hangs in the balance. Does the truth lie in the rumored final book of the series that made Harriet a world-famous writer, or will her final confession be lost forever?

Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders tells the moving story of the unforgettable Wolf women in four distinct voices: the mysterious Harriet, who, until now, has never revealed the secrets of her past; her fiery, overprotective daughter, Eleanor; and her two grown granddaughters -- Tilton, the fragile yet exuberant younger sister, who's become a housebound hermit, and Ruth, the older sister, who ran away at sixteen and never looked back.

When Eleanor is hospitalized, Ruth decides it's time to do right by a pact she made with Tilton long ago: to return home and save her sister. Meanwhile, Harriet whispers her true life story to the reader. It's a story that spans the entire twentieth century and is filled with mobsters, outcasts, a lonesome lion, and a home for wayward women. It's also a tribute to her lifelong love of the boy she met at the Maryland School for Feeble-minded Children.

Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders, Julianna Baggott's most sweeping and mesmerizing novel yet, offers a profound meditation on motherhood and sisterhood, as well as on the central importance of stories. It is a novel that affords its characters that rare chance we all long for -- the chance to reimagine the stories of our lives while there's still time.

Reseñas de la Crítica

Praise for Pure

"Pure is not just the most extraordinary coming-of-age novel I've ever read, it is also a beautiful and savage metaphorical assessment of how all of us live in this present age. This is an important book by one of our finest writers."—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winner

"A great gorgeous whirlwind of a novel, boundless in its imagination. You will be swept away."—Justin Cronin, New York Times bestselling author of The Passage

Praise for The Madam

"A poet has transformed a piece of history into a luminous and epic piece of literature; it's as if John Irving and Djuna Barnes had collaborated, each bringing to the page the fiery best of their various gifts, the dark and lyrical and bizarre and sexual and comical and violent and mysterious and supremely heart-breaking spectacle of wide, wild lives rendered vividly before our eyes."—Antonya Nelson

"Beautifully rendered, this story is as brave and unique and full of surprises as the madam portrayed within it."—Elizabeth Strout, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

"Few writers of the twenty-first century can rival the verve, the energy and the sheer delight in language of Julianna Baggott. Profoundly different from anything she has done before, The Madam is an extraordinary novel which will open a whole new phase of what already looks like a brilliant career."—Madison Smartt Bell

Praise for The Miss America Family

"Julianna Baggott enjoys living on the knife edge between hilarity and heartbreak and that makes her a writer after my own heart."—Richard Russo, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Praise for Girl Talk

"For Baggott, cosmic irony is always in the details, the absurd gap between self-knowledge and behavioral excess ... [Her] brand of witty psychological observation is dark and corrosive... [she] has the knack for finding the oxymoronic in any situation."—New York Times Book Review

Interesting Story

What did you like best about this story?

I liked the use of the different narrators to tell the story. I would have loved to read this book, the narrators detracted from the story.

What didn’t you like about the narrators’s performance?

I found almost all the narrators voices annoying. It seemed to be more a dramatization than a narration at points.

Nice story

Nice story that rolls back on itself, spanning generations of lovers, fathers, mothers, and sisters. I loved it.

Perfect from beginning to end!

I loved this book! Harriet, Eleanor, Ruth, and Tilton each tell their own story, all the while intensifying the curiosity the reader has for Harriet and her story. The novel manages to stay realistic fiction, while having the magical quality of a fairy tale. There are good guys and bad guys, complex and thorny mother/daughter relationships, a romance of the epic love story type, as well as a couple of mundane marriages, and even a lion! It all works, and the ending (something which has been such a letdown in so many books I've been reading lately) was perfect.

Love!

Such a beautifully written story! It captures your heart and makes you love the characters. The narration is exceptional.

Loved it!

From the voices, to the storyline, I couldn't wait to finish it. Sad it's over!

Story telling

I fell in love with the telling of this story. It is written like a masterpiece painting or sculpture; constructed from layer upon layer of intricate information - the details of a life lived fully, even when caged.

Disappointing

I was intrigued by the mother-daughter-sister-grandmother theme, and hoped for a good read, but the book was flat and sluggish, the characters mostly unrelatable, the plot tricked out with awful gimmicks like a motorcycle-riding lion. That Harriet could have written 6 highly-acclaimed novels that were the subject of scholarly attention before becoming a recluse lacked all credibility, and despite good parts in the beginning (at the Home and the asylum), I found that the book lacked texture or movement -- perhaps because all the characters except Tilton were mired in past grievances.
As for the narration, whoever voiced Harriet had an annoying wheedly voice, and was completely out of her depth when required to speak in a man's voice. Terrible. I wanted to rip the headphones off. The others were fine.

Truely wonderful story

what a great story from start to finish. the type of story that makes it impossible to stop listening.

Might be good, but couldn't stand the narrators!

Only made it to the second chapter. I'm interested in the story, but can't get past the horrible narrators. Returning for something else...