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Lila: A Novel
by Marilynne Robinson
- Used
- Very Good
- Hardcover
- Signed
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/Very Good
- ISBN 10
- 0374187614
- ISBN 13
- 9780374187613
- Seller
-
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 2014. First Edition. Hardcover . Very Good/Very Good. Signed by Robinson on Farrar Straus Giroux bookplate on the half-title page. Slight scuff on front free endpage.
Reviews
On Nov 11 2014, CloggieDownunder said:
“She saw him standing in the parlor with his beautiful old head bowed down on his beautiful old chest……….Praying looks just like grief. Like shame. Like regret”
Lila is the fourth novel by prize-winning American author, Marilynne Robinson, and the third book in the Gilead series. Readers of the first book will recall that seventy-six year old Reverend John Ames was married to Lila, a woman thirty-five years his junior who had borne him a son seven years before. Just how that somewhat intriguing situation came to be: how an old man came to marry a much younger woman, a woman with a very different background to that of his first wife; is what Robinson relates in this third book.
As her life with John Ames and her pregnancy progresses, Lila, a seemingly prickly character, thinks back on her life, the events of which are gradually revealed. It has been a life filled with hardship, loneliness and loss (“Don’t want what you don’t need and you’ll be fine. Don’t want what you can’t have”) and Lila finds it difficult to trust her new-found security with John Ames, constantly reassuring herself that she can leave at any time and go back to what she had before, although she is loathe to hurt him (“Maybe I can teach him a new kind of sadness. Maybe he really does care whether I stay or go”). It seems an unlikely match but as Lila reads the Bible and challenges John with all sorts of difficult questions about life, it becomes apparent that both parties benefit from the union. She muses “What would I pray for, if I thought there was any point to it? Well, I guess the first thing would have to be that there was some kind of point to it” and eventually finds that his care “was nothing she had known to hope for and something she had wanted too much all the same. So too much happiness came with it, and happiness was strange to her.”
This is a novel with some beautiful descriptive prose (“She had never really thought about the way the dead would gather at the edge of town, all their names spelled out so you’d know whose they were for as long as that family lived in that place” and “….the fields looking so green in the evening light…Every farmhouse in its cloud of trees. There is a way trees stir before rain, as if they already felt the heaviness”), as well as many words of wisdom (“Any good thing is less good the more any human lays claim to it” and “Thinking about hell doesn’t help me live the way I should”).
This moving and thought-provoking novel, National Book Award Nominee for Fiction 2014, is a heart-warming read.
With thanks to TheReadingRoom and the publisher for this copy to read and review.
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Details
- Bookseller
- A Cappella Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 318386
- Title
- Lila: A Novel
- Author
- Marilynne Robinson
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition
- ISBN 10
- 0374187614
- ISBN 13
- 9780374187613
- Publisher
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- October 2014
- Pages
- 272
Terms of Sale
A Cappella Books
Books fully returnable up to ten days after purchase with prior notification.. All credit cards accepted. Postage: $4.00 for first book, $1.50 for each thereafter for USPS media mail. Postage for larger books, international orders and priority mail quoted individually. Shipping Terms: Shipping costs are based on books weighing 2.2 LB, or 1 KG. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we may contact you to let you know extra shipping is required.
About the Seller
A Cappella Books
Biblio member since 2005
Atlanta, Georgia
About A Cappella Books
https://mailchi.mp/acappellabooks/signed-books-from-online-marketplaces
A Cappella Books is a full service used, new & out-of-print bookstore located in the heart of Atlanta's bohemian district, Little 5 Points, since 1989. We stock a general selection of some 20 to 30, 000 paperbacks & hardcovers, ranging from the common to the quite scarce. Our specialties reflect the personality of our neighborhood and, to varying degrees, our staff. But don't be fooled, we really have something for almost everybody who loves books. Come see us.
A Cappella Books is a full service used, new & out-of-print bookstore located in the heart of Atlanta's bohemian district, Little 5 Points, since 1989. We stock a general selection of some 20 to 30, 000 paperbacks & hardcovers, ranging from the common to the quite scarce. Our specialties reflect the personality of our neighborhood and, to varying degrees, our staff. But don't be fooled, we really have something for almost everybody who loves books. Come see us.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Bookplate
- Highly sought after by some collectors, a book plate is an inscribed or decorative device that identifies the owner, or former...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...