Remembering The Bones

De: Frances Itani

Narrado por: Jackie Burroughs

Georgina Danforth Witley has never felt she has led anything but an ordinary life. But here she is on her way to meet the Queen. Born on April 21, 1926, the exact same day as Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Georgie is one of 99 privileged Commonwealth subjects invited to an 80th birthday lunch at Buckingham Palace.

All she has to do is drive two hours to the airport and board the plane for London. Except that in her excited state, Georgie drives her car off the road, tumbling hood over trunk into a thickly wooded ravine.

Thrown from the car, injured and unable to move but desperately hopeful that someone will find her, she must rely on her strength, her full store of family memories, her no-nonsense wit and a recitation of the names of the bones in her body - a long-forgotten exercise from childhood that reminds her she is still very much alive.

©2008 Frances Itani (P)2008 HarperCollins Canada

Moving and Lovely, and Excellently Performed

A woman who shares her birthday with the Queen, Georgie is invited to the event, and drives herself toward the airport, only to end up at the bottom of a ravine, where her only companions are her own memories, as struggles to survive long enough for a rescue that won't likely know she is missing for a week.

I think that this audiobook was all the more moving and stirring due to the reader, who handled the voice of the 80 year-old woman with perfect cadence and tone. I happily meandered along with Georgie, all the while aware that she was lying at the bottom of a ravine, and doing everything she can - what little there is - to survive.

A book that reminded me in turns of "My Sister's Keeper" and "Clara Callan" both, "Remembering the Bones" is a beautiful story told in pieces. The ultimate ending, done deftly by Itani, left me satisfied.