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Loading... Peace Like a Riverby Leif Enger
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  InsatiableB | Oct 21, 2009 |  Do you ever read a book that is so beautiful that you want to celebrate? Yes, sing and dance and cry grateful tears? This week I had that thrill when I read "Peace Like a River" by Leif Enger. Yes, this book has many fans and I am so glad that I finally read it. It is my favorite novel that I have read thus far in 2009 and I read a lot, and I am a writer so I greatly admire Enger's skill. The prose is lyrical, the story compelling, with an underlying outlaw theme, set in rural Minnesota and the wild Badlands of North Dakota, and the narrator is an 11 year old boy. The father, Jeremiah Land, sometimes works miracles, the older brother Davy risks all to defend his family, there is a federal agent in pursuit, and horses play key roles in the drama. Yes, "Peace Like a River" is brilliant and will whisk you away to the Badlands, miracles, danger and family love. (  ) hangen | Oct 15, 2009 | rather innocuous spiritual, cowboy poetry, romantic western--whatever that is... (  ) rampaginglibrarian | Oct 10, 2009 | A story line and time with the simplicity as a Huck Finn story. The writings of a definate classic. I did so enjoy this book. It took me away from the modern world and allowed me to live simply yet with grace and knowledge. Such beautiful writing. Many times I would go back and reread not so much what was written but "how" it was written. Escape with this 11 year-old. Reuben to find insight on what you would label a "simple life" and find the adventure I was surprised to uncover in the Mid-West day to day. Go along on a cross country travel to find someone. Live in the poetic fantasy filled mind of Reubens little sister, Swede. Their character is heart warming. The story twist is there as well. (  ) BONS | Sep 21, 2009 | Slow.........painful to finish......... (  ) KC9333 | Aug 23, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com's Best of 2001 (ISBN 0802139256, Paperback)To the list of great American child narrators that includes Huck Finn and Scout Finch, let us now add Reuben "Rube" Land, the asthmatic 11-year-old boy at the center of Leif Enger's remarkable first novel, Peace Like a River. Rube recalls the events of his childhood, in small-town Minnesota circa 1962, in a voice that perfectly captures the poetic, verbal stoicism of the northern Great Plains. "Here's what I saw," Rube warns his readers. "Here's how it went. Make of it what you will." And Rube sees plenty.In the winter of his 11th year, two schoolyard bullies break into the Lands' house, and Rube's big brother Davy guns them down with a Winchester. Shortly after his arrest, Davy breaks out of jail and goes on the lam. Swede is Rube's younger sister, a precocious writer who crafts rhymed epics of romantic Western outlawry. Shortly after Davy's escape, Rube, Swede, and their father, a widowed school custodian, hit the road too, swerving this way and that across Minnesota and North Dakota, determined to find their lost outlaw Davy. In the end it's not Rube who haunts the reader's imagination, it's his father, torn between love for his outlaw son and the duty to do the right, honest thing. Enger finds something quietly heroic in the bred-in-the-bone Minnesota decency of America's heartland. Peace Like a River opens up a new chapter in Midwestern literature. --Claire Dederer (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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I read Peace Like a River in college for a fiction writing class. The professor happened to be friends with Leif Enger and had us read the book and then had Mr. Enger come to a class and have Q&A. So much fun!
I re-read this one for my church book club and re-enjoyed every second of it.
This novel is a hybrid of Western, suspense and drama all tied together with impeccable literary voice. I mean, it's one of the most well-written books I've ever had the chance to read.
Other than Scarlett O'Hara, Swede is my most memorable female fiction character. (