Small World: A Novel
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)
A New York Times Editors' Choice!
One of Booklist’s “Top 10 Historical Fiction Novels of 2022”
One of the Los Angeles Times's “10 Books to Add to Your Reading List”
One of Book Culture's Most Anticipated Reads
“A bighearted, widescreen American tale.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Masterpiece . . . The quintessential great American novel.”—Booklist (starred review)
“A vivid mosaic.”—BookPage (starred review)
Jonathan Evison’s Small World is an epic novel for now. Set against such iconic backdrops as the California gold rush, the development of the transcontinental railroad, and a speeding train of modern-day strangers forced together by fate, it is a grand entertainment that asks big questions.
The characters of Small World connect in the most intriguing and meaningful ways, winning, breaking, and winning our hearts again. In exploring the passengers’ lives and those of their ancestors more than a century before, Small World chronicles 170 years of American nation-building from numerous points of view across place and time. And it does it with a fullhearted, full-throttle pace that asks on the most human, intimate scale whether it is truly possible to meet, and survive, the choices posed—and forced—by the age.
The result is a historical epic with a Dickensian flair, a grand entertainment that asks whether our nation has made good on its promises. It dazzles as its characters come to connect with one another through time. And it hits home as it probes at our country’s injustices, big and small, straight through to its deeply satisfying final words.
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Jonathan Evison. (2022). Small World: A Novel. Unabridged Books on Tape.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Jonathan Evison. 2022. Small World: A Novel. Books on Tape.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Jonathan Evison, Small World: A Novel. Books on Tape, 2022.
MLA Citation (style guide)Jonathan Evison. Small World: A Novel. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2022.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 3 | 3 |
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- Winner of the Housatonic Book Award
A New York Times Editors' Choice!
One of Booklist’s “Top 10 Historical Fiction Novels of 2022”
One of the Los Angeles Times's “10 Books to Add to Your Reading List”
One of Book Culture's Most Anticipated Reads
“A bighearted, widescreen American tale.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Masterpiece . . . The quintessential great American novel.”—Booklist (starred review)
“A vivid mosaic.”—BookPage (starred review)
Jonathan Evison’s Small World is an epic novel for now. Set against such iconic backdrops as the California gold rush, the development of the transcontinental railroad, and a speeding train of modern-day strangers forced together by fate, it is a grand entertainment that asks big questions.
The characters of Small World connect in the most intriguing and meaningful ways, winning, breaking, and winning our hearts again. In exploring the passengers’ lives and those of their ancestors more than a century before, Small World chronicles 170 years of American nation-building from numerous points of view across place and time. And it does it with a fullhearted, full-throttle pace that asks on the most human, intimate scale whether it is truly possible to meet, and survive, the choices posed—and forced—by the age.
The result is a historical epic with a Dickensian flair, a grand entertainment that asks whether our nation has made good on its promises. It dazzles as its characters come to connect with one another through time. And it hits home as it probes at our country’s injustices, big and small, straight through to its deeply satisfying final words. - reviews
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November 8, 2021
Evison’s ambitious if overlong latest (after Legends of the North Cascades) tells the stories of a train’s passengers and their ancestors after a disastrous crash. In 2019, veteran conductor Walter Bergen embarks from Portland, Ore., to Seattle, his final journey on the Amtrak payroll. Estranged from his family for decades, Bergen is a simple train-loving man who adores his wife Annie, and is also, as shown in one of the novel’s many descriptive passages set in the mid-19th century, a descendant of Chicago Irish twin orphans. Malik, a passenger and a young basketball star heading toward a prized invitational, is a descendent of an enslaved person. After the train crashes, Malik pleads with Walter to help his injured mother. There’s also Jenny, a corporate consultant and descendent of Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs; and Laila, a Native American, who is fleeing an abusive husband. While some of the historical details and the characters’ relationships to one another feel a bit scattered, Evison’s depiction of the characters’ family histories builds significance as contemporary racial inequalities and class disparities are brought into relief against those of the 1850s. “America was a rigged competition,” one character remarks, firmly setting the tone and cadence of Evison’s expansive saga. It’s baggy, but still thick with insights. Agent: Mollie Glick, Creative Artists Agency.
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- content: William DeMeritt narrates this mosaic of a novel, which ties together the 19th-century ancestors of 21st-century characters who are headed for a train disaster. DeMeritt masterfully paces the intertwining stories with a keen sense of drama, smoothly takes on the accents--Irish, English, German, Southern, and adeptly voices the remarkable characters, a pastiche of Americans including a robber baron, an immigrant, an enslaved person, and a Native. Evison has written a love song to bygone America, especially the nation's railroads, which changed our sense of space and time. In sparkling prose rich with historical detail and contemporary insight, he shows how our past--the tough road for immigrants, the stain of slavery, and the deplorable treatment of Native Americans--influenced how we live now. An enthralling audiobook. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
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Starred review from March 1, 2022
Evison (All About Lulu) pieces together a vivid mosaic of the imperfect American dream. Incorporating four sets of ancestors and their descendants, who will literally collide as passengers on a train in 2019, the narrative is constantly in motion, a restlessness also embodied in many of Evison's supremely well-crafted characters. The ancestors' tales begin in the mid-1800s: young Irish immigrant twins are cruelly separated by the orphanage that took them in after their mother died; a slave escapes and finds the love of his life, though not the freedom he deserves; a Chinese immigrant finds both his fortune and true love, but only after acts of violence for which he cannot forgive himself; and a young member of the displaced Miwok nation runs from the memory of her parents' murder, finding a new life with a wonderful husband, until this happiness is threatened as well. The 21st-century story lines track the descendants striving for their version of the American Dream, pushing back against racism, sexism, and income inequality, 170 years after their ancestors fought these same exhausting battles. Narrator William DeMeritt magnificently portrays the multitude of characters while maintaining perfect pacing throughout 16 hours of constant temporal and point-of-view shifts. VERDICT This absolutely enthralling audiobook production is a testament both to DeMeritt's skill and to Evison's storytelling brilliance.--Beth Farrell
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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A New York Times Editors' Choice!
One of Booklist’s “Top 10 Historical Fiction Novels of 2022”
One of the Los Angeles Times's “10 Books to Add to Your Reading List”
One of Book Culture's Most Anticipated Reads
“A bighearted, widescreen American tale.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Masterpiece . . . The quintessential great American novel.”—Booklist (starred review)
“A vivid mosaic.”—BookPage (starred review)
Jonathan Evison’s Small World is an epic novel for now. Set against such iconic backdrops as the California gold rush, the development of the transcontinental railroad, and a speeding train of modern-day strangers forced together by fate, it is a grand entertainment that asks big questions.
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