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Unaccustomed Earth
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780307265739
ISBN: 0307265730
Label: Knopf
Manufacturer: Knopf
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: April 01, 2008
Publisher: Knopf
Release Date: April 01, 2008
Studio: Knopf
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Editorial Review:From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories—a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate—we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome. Unaccustomed Earth is rich with Jhumpa Lahiri’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom, and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is a masterful, dazzling work of a writer at the peak of her powers.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - We've Been Here Before
Lahiri's work has become predictable: children of middle or upper class Bengali immigrants adopt American customs, causing consternation to their traditional parents/family. Most of this isn't even especially well written. She had some earlier successes, notably the Third and Final Continent, but this is just getting boring.
Rating:  - Unaccustomed Earth
Well written book about the adjustment to life in America by Indian immigrants. I don't usually like short stories, but these held my interest and they all had an interesting ending.
Rating: - Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
A beautifully (as usual) written book by Ms Lahiri -- but oh so very depressing... Every story in this collection deals with death, dying, suicide, love relationships gone bad, etc. etc. I persevered to the end, thinking that the pattern would be broken, but it never was. Don't read this when you're in a "down" part of your life.
Rating:  - Beauty in simplicity
I am typically not a fan of short stories as I find the development of the characters lacking and just as you develop a relationship (of sorts) the story is cut and the next begins.
Unaccustomed Earth was an exception. The stories are neither complex or heavily worded but simple and straight-forward. The theme continues through the book with some stories being tied together to form a whole.
While I certainly do not believe her stories tell the tale of all Indian existence ... Read More
Rating: - Accustomed to this formula
Lahiri uses the same formula -- not much to differentiate this book from her first 2. Would have been nice to see something new...
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