Beryl Bainbridge. (2016). The Birthday Boys: A Novel. Open Road Media.

Beryl Bainbridge. 2016. The Birthday Boys: A Novel. Open Road Media.

Beryl Bainbridge, The Birthday Boys: A Novel. Open Road Media, 2016.

Beryl Bainbridge. The Birthday Boys: A Novel. Open Road Media, 2016.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/2363-1/{E6F39EE4-1188-493F-8055-9ECD16CC138F}IMG100.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2363-1/{E6F39EE4-1188-493F-8055-9ECD16CC138F}IMG200.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2363-1/{E6F39EE4-1188-493F-8055-9ECD16CC138F}IMG150.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2363-1/{E6F39EE4-1188-493F-8055-9ECD16CC138F}IMG400.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781504039420
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B01KNCU90U
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781504039420
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Beryl Bainbridge

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

The Birthday Boys

dateAdded

2018-01-06T03:00:00Z

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com?websiteID=141&titleID=2936500
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

Birthday Boys A Novel

crossRefId

2936500

subtitle

A Novel

id

E6F39EE4-1188-493F-8055-9ECD16CC138F

starRating

4

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: TheBirthdayBoys_9781504039420_2936500
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 3993311
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781504039420
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 1
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 10/4/2016
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=e6f39ee4-1188-493f-8055-9ecd16cc138f&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: TheBirthdayBoys_2936500
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B01KNCU90U
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 10/4/2016
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=e6f39ee4-1188-493f-8055-9ecd16cc138f&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: TheBirthdayBoys_9781504039420_2936500
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 2901324
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781504039420
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 10/4/2016
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=e6f39ee4-1188-493f-8055-9ecd16cc138f&.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: explorers
2. • value: British
3. • value: Polar exploration
4. • value: britain
5. • value: journey
6. • value: Voyage
7. • value: class
8. • value: discovery
9. • value: 20th Century
10. • value: Historical Fiction
11. • value: England
12. • value: Adventure
13. • value: Great Britain
14. • value: Action and Adventure
15. • value: Modern fiction
16. • value: arctic exploration
17. • value: survival
18. • value: English literature
19. • value: twentieth century
20. • value: Blizzards
21. • value: Antarctic
22. • value: polar
23. • value: South Pole
24. • value: tragedy
25. • value: Literary
26. • value: British Literature
27. • value: edwardian era
28. • value: British author
29. • value: Medic
30. • value: hard journey
31. • value: blending fact and fiction
32. • value: Captain Lawrence Oates
33. • value: Captain Robert Scott
34. • value: Captain Robert Scott's 1910 expedition to Antartic
35. • value: dog teams
36. • value: Dr. Edward Wilson
37. • value: fictional account
38. • value: fictionalized biography
39. • value: Lieutenant Henry Bowers
40. • value: long journey
41. • value: officer class
42. • value: Petty Officer Taff Evans
43. • value: polar party
44. • value: Scott expedition
45. • value: surviving the elements
46. • value: tragic story

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Bainbridge, Beryl
   • bioText:
     Dame Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010) is acknowledged as one of the greatest British novelists of her time. She was the author of two travel books, five plays, and seventeen novels, five of which were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, including Master Georgie, which went on to win the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the WHSmith Literary Award. She was also awarded the Whitbread Literary Award twice, for Injury Time and Every Man for Himself. In 2011, a special Man Booker “Best of Beryl” Prize was awarded in her honor, voted for by members of the public.
      
     Born in Liverpool and raised in nearby Formby, Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, leaving the theater to have her first child. Her first novel, Harriet Said . . ., was written around this time, although it was rejected by several publishers who found it “indecent.” Her first published works were Another Part of the Wood and An Awfully Big Adventure, and many of her early novels retell her Liverpudlian childhood. A number of her books have been adapted for the screen, most notably An Awfully Big Adventure, which is set in provincial theater and was made into a film by Mike Newell, starring Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant. She later turned to more historical themes, such as the Scott Expedition in The Birthday Boys, a retelling of the Titanic story in Every Man for Himself, and Master Georgie, which follows Liverpudlians during the Crimean War. Her no-word-wasted style and tight plotting have won her critical acclaim and a committed following. Bainbridge regularly contributed articles and reviews to the Guardian, Observer, and Spectator, among others, and she was the Oldie’s longstanding theater critic. In 2008, she appeared at number twenty-six in a list of the fifty most important novelists since 1945 compiled by the Times (London). At the time of her death, Bainbridge was working on a new novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, which was published posthumously.
      
   • name: Beryl Bainbridge

publishDate

2016-10-04T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

The Birthday Boys

fullDescription

The dramatic, fictionalized account of Robert Falcon Scott’s famed and fatal expedition to Antarctica by one of Britain’s best-loved authors.
Departing from Cardiff in 1910, the Terra Nova entered dark waters and headed south. On board were Petty Officer Edgar “Taff” Evans, Dr. Edward “Uncle Bill” Wilson, Capt. Robert Falcon “Con” Scott, Lt. Henry Robertson “Birdie” Bowers, and Capt. Lawrence Edward “Titus” Oates. Through an imaginative yet historically accurate retelling of the crew’s mission to become the first explorers to reach the South Pole—and with each of the book’s five chapters narrated from the unique perspective of one of these men—author Beryl Bainbridge imbues a tragic and thrilling adventure story with profound psychological, metaphysical, and emotional insight.
 
The first three chapters of The Birthday Boys—recounted by Evans, Wilson, and Scott, respectively—tell of the preparations and fundraising required for the journey, two stopovers in Madeira and South Trinidad Island, and the difficult conditions the expedition faces when they land on Antarctica. It is Wilson who first fears for the safety of the crew, when from atop the ship’s crow’s-nest he spies a fantastical half-man-half-bird creature flying above the sea. The doctor is certain this apparition is a harbinger of death. Troubles then ensue when Scott sets up a base camp at Cape Evans as well as several depots in the direction of the South Pole. The motor sledge breaks down almost immediately, several ponies are lost to the harsh elements, and it is revealed that a competing polar expedition led by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen is already well ahead of Scott’s team.
 
In the final two chapters—told by Bowers and Oates—readers are taken on a dangerous but spectacular detour to a penguin rookery, where the men witness gorgeous auroras, build an igloo, gather eggs, and slaughter the arctic birds for their blubber. When a violent blizzard hits, it looks as if no one will make it out alive. But brotherly love in the face of all odds gives the men the power to survive, and the five heroes set off on their final march to the South Pole.
 
Though history has already revealed the catastrophic end of this tale, Bainbridge shows us the bravery, courage, and humanity essential to the adventure. Masterfully blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, The Birthday Boys is a compelling historical biography that challenges readers to discover truths that can only be reached through the imagination.
 
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Beryl Bainbridge including rare images from the author’s estate.
 

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from April 4, 1994
     Bainbridge, the idiosyncratic English author whose best-known books here are probably The Bottle Factory Outing and The Dressmaker , has never gained the American audience she deserves. The fact that this gripping, moving and hair-raisingly readable novel has taken three years to achieve publication here--and then only by a courageous and enterprising smaller publisher--suggests that Americans are still slightly wary of her. Readers should abandon such caution immediately, for this is by far her best book to date: a riveting account told in shifting first-person narratives by the key members of the doomed Antarctic expedition led by Captain Scott in 1912. It has been written about often before, and memorably filmed, but Bainbridge's cunningly fictionalized account leaves others standing. She takes on, in turn, the voices of burly, roistering Welsh Petty Officer Taff Evans; sweet-natured, scholarly, all-forgiving Dr. Edward (Uncle Bill) Wilson; Captain Robert Falcon Scott himself, a memorably complex man with a strong gift for command overlying deep inner fears and anxieties; Lieut. Henry (Birdie) Bowers, an endlessly energetic, curious, squat adventurer who has roved the world's perilous places alone; and aloof, sardonic, aristocratic Capt. Lawrence (Titus) Oates, a rich man beginning to realize his essential humanity in the months before his death. Every Englishman knows the agonizing end of their story, only hinted at in the book by a schoolgirl's map of their final death march back from the South Pole after being beaten there by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. A whole lost era of fantastic courage, determination, idealism, curiosity, boyish foolishness and class mores is brought brilliantly and touchingly back by Bainbridge's penetrating psychological acumen and her superb scene and action painting. The beauty and horror of the desolate landscapes, the painful limits of human endurance and bravery, are unforgettably caught in prose that is as swift, cool and clear as ice melt. A masterly achievement, not to be missed by anyone who cherishes a strong, meaningful story beautifully told.

popularity

5

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/e6f39ee4-1188-493f-8055-9ecd16cc138f/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

e6f39ee4-1188-493f-8055-9ecd16cc138f

starRating

4

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/2363-1/{E6F39EE4-1188-493F-8055-9ECD16CC138F}IMG100.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2363-1/{E6F39EE4-1188-493F-8055-9ECD16CC138F}IMG200.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2363-1/{E6F39EE4-1188-493F-8055-9ECD16CC138F}IMG150.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2363-1/{E6F39EE4-1188-493F-8055-9ECD16CC138F}IMG400.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Fiction
2. • value: Literature
3. • value: Historical Fiction

publishDateText

10/04/2016

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

The dramatic, fictionalized account of Robert Falcon Scott’s famed and fatal expedition to Antarctica by one of Britain’s best-loved authors.
Departing from Cardiff in 1910, the Terra Nova entered dark waters and headed south. On board were Petty Officer Edgar “Taff” Evans, Dr. Edward “Uncle Bill” Wilson, Capt. Robert Falcon “Con” Scott, Lt. Henry Robertson “Birdie” Bowers, and Capt. Lawrence Edward “Titus” Oates. Through an imaginative yet historically accurate retelling of the crew’s mission to become the first explorers to reach the South Pole—and with each of the book’s five chapters narrated from the unique perspective of one of these men—author Beryl Bainbridge imbues a tragic and thrilling adventure story with profound psychological, metaphysical, and emotional insight.
 
The first three chapters of The Birthday Boys—recounted by...

sortTitle

Birthday Boys A Novel

crossRefId

2936500

subtitle

A Novel

publisher

Open Road Media

bisacCodes

1. • code: FIC014000
   • description: FICTION / Historical / General
2. • code: FIC019000
   • description: Fiction / Literary
3. • code: FIC041000
   • description: Fiction / Biographical