From the Bookshelf of 2017 Reading Challenge…

Beautiful Ruins

Jess Walter

Start date: January 1, 2015

Discussion: 15/Book chosen by its cover

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15/Book chosen by its cover

Zodiac by Romina Russell
By Charlotte · 1 post · 16 views

last updated Dec 08, 2015 07:26AM

The Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicholson
By Amanda · 1 post · 9 views

last updated Nov 22, 2015 12:49PM

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What Members Thought

Jul 24, 2020 Rebecca Heneghan rated it really liked it

This one on a list of best audiobooks. Narrator was really great. Lots of braided stories that are combined together.

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Jun 02, 2013 Constance rated it liked it

This was a bit uneven for my taste. Told in several points-of-view and ranging over 50 years, with a buffoonish Richard Burton making a slapstick appearance highly reminiscent of Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year, everything is tied up with a neat moralizing bow, repeated a score of times by the end.

Some POVs were not as successful as others, sometimes making it tough to stay interested. The Slaughterhouse-5 pastiche chapter nearly caused me to throw in the towel ("There you go." Seriously?).

N ...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Pinal County Library District rated it it was amazing

Shelves: staff-picks

The gorgeous cover of Beautiful Ruins will find a reader dreaming of the Italian coastline and the story only adds to that reverie. The novel opens with an innkeeper attempting to create a sandy haven on his rocky beach and then a beautiful American actress appears before him requesting a room in his small hotel. We then fast forward to Hollywood where we meet a young man and woman who are each experiencing their own mid-life and mid-career crises. As the story goes back and forth between 1962 a ...more

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