The Living Sea of Waking Dreams

A novel

By: Richard Flanagan

Narrated by: Essie Davis

From the acclaimed Booker Prize-winning author comes a dazzling novel of family, love and love's disappointments

Anna's aged mother is dying. Condemned by her children's pity to living, subjected to increasingly desperate medical interventions, she turns her focus to her hospital window, through which she escapes into visions of horror and delight. When Anna's finger vanishes and a few months later her knee disappears, Anna too feels the pull of the window. She begins to see that all around her, others are similarly vanishing, yet no one else notices. All Anna can do is keep her mother alive. But the window keeps opening wider, taking Anna and the reader ever deeper into an eerily beautiful story of grief and possibility, of loss and love and orange-bellied parrots.

Hailed on publication in Australia as Richard Flanagan's greatest novel yet, The Living Sea of Waking Dreams is a rising ember storm illuminating what remains when the inferno beckons: one part elegy, one part dream, one part hope.

Magnificent

The narration enveloped me and I felt like part of the dialogue. Superb writing, reading and all. Thank you for a most enjoyable experience.

The living sea of waking dreams

While it brought up interesting topics, it didn’t delve too deeply into any one of them .

Beyond compare!

This book was a standout in every way. I was mesmerized and sometimes brought to tears. A masterpiece for the times,

Darkness Inside a Cavern with Tar Thrown on It

My god I hated this book! The irony is that I agree with all the premises that the book is founded on. Social media shutting us down to the world falling apart around us and our detachment from the earth, so I had great hopes. The author did not do a good job of even tying that in. The main character was a horrible person who seems more caught up in her problems outside of social media and modern life for that to even matter. The book never gets better, never makes more sense, and is profoundly dark to the point of ridiculousness. Don't expect light, insight or any answers from this one!

Dreadful! Tried so hard to get into it

This has been the most dreadful book I have listened to/read in a long time. I didn’t remember how I got it, Ie. If a friend recommended it, I tried super hard to get into it and kept hoping for something to happen to turn this story into something worthwhile. I gave up after about 7 painful chapters (more than half). Don’t waste your time there is so much good content out there.