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Let the Great World Spin

Colum McCann

Discussion: September/October 2009

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Showing 2 of 3 topics — 18 comments total

September/October 2009

Commencement - J. Courtney Sullivan
By Stephanie · 3 posts · 19 views

last updated Aug 10, 2011 01:35PM

Shanghai Girls - by Lisa See
By LynnB · 7 posts · 16 views

last updated Dec 28, 2010 07:59AM

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What Members Thought

Mar 22, 2022 Megan rated it liked it

Shelves: hmmmm, race, male-author, connections, religion, 2009, fiction, literary-fiction, new-york, city-life

I was absolutely taken by the first few chapters about Corrigan, his brother and their life in Ireland. The writing was beautiful and both characters felt multi-faceted and real.

For reasons I found hard to pinpoint, I was just never as gripped by any of the other characters' stories and it unfortunately felt hard to get through at times. The writing was still great and I wanted to like it more, I just didn't. It's always hard for me to fault the author too much in these types of interconnected- ...more

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Jul 01, 2013 Chanda2426 rated it it was amazing

Absolutely breathtaking! McCann writes with such prose and eloquence. His words are like an Andes mint — your brain wants to devour it's smooth, minty sweetness, but your heart begs to let it linger a bit longer. I wanted to desperately inhale this book, but alas it was a read you really have to digest bit by bit. Incredible imagery of New York, a city, it's people and an era. ...more

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Feb 21, 2011 Mary rated it really liked it

I didn't like this book until I was about 2/3 through when I stopped thinking how dark it was and how troubled the characters were and began realizing how their stories were related. Then those same characters started to draw me in to their stories and I was hooked.
I had the good fortune to meet Colum McCann at the Brady Author's Symposium here in Salisbury, NC, and he is a real storyteller. He told us that he is currently working on a screenplay for the book, and I think it will make a wonderf ...more

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Feb 07, 2011 Michelle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-audio-books, national-book-award-winners

Gosh, I was really enjoying this book. So much so that I did not keep up with how much audio I had left. It seemed like I had just started the 2nd half. And poof, it just ended. Makes me wonder if somehow I accidently fast forwarded through to the end...

More later

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Oct 16, 2010 Ginni rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Good writing, but just too depressing for me. Also not really an era that I'm that interested in, the 70's. Had a good ending and eventually the pieces got tied together. Just wasn't that interesting to me. ...more

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Feb 23, 2014 Gail Luther rated it really liked it

I enjoyed this book. At first, I thought it was short stories but then I realized that all of the stories were inter-related. Sometimes, it took awhile to figure who was narrating the particular story.

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