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AudibleInk - Nation CD
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List Price: N/A
Our Price: $12.99
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Manufacturer: Audiobooks
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Currently OUT OF STOCK
Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 9781846576942
Format: Audiobook
ISBN: 1846576946
Label: Audiobooks
Manufacturer: Audiobooks
Number Of Items: 1
Publication Date: 2008-10-07
Publisher: Audiobooks
Reading Level: All Ages
Release Date: 2008-10-07
Studio: Audiobooks
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Editorial Reviews:
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Finding himself alone on a desert island when everything and everyone he knows and loved has been washed away in a huge storm, Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He's also completely alone - or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird and gives him a stick which can make fire. Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy. Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark. She's certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her but it seems, for now, all she has for company is the boy and the foul-mouthed ship's parrot. As it happens, they are not alone for long. Other survivors start to arrive to take refuge on the island they all call the Nation and then raiders accompanied by murderous mutineers from the Sweet Judy. Together, Mau and Daphne discover some remarkable things - including how to milk a pig and why spitting in beer is a good thing - and start to forge a new Nation. As can be expected from Terry Pratchett, the master story-teller, this new children's novel is both witty and wise, encompassing themes of death and nationhood, while being extremely funny. Mau's ancestors have something to teach us all. Mau just wishes they would shut up about it and let him get on with saving everyone's lives!
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Good Indeed - Coming of Age
Comment: I must start by saying that Terry Pratchett is one of my top 10 favorite authors next to Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, PG Wodehouse and Robert Jordan. So going into this book, I probably have a pro-Pratchett bias. If you feel this is makes me unqualified to review this book, click the no next the question was this helpful and move on to the next review.
This title is an exploration of the coming of age plot. The main character is literally coming to age by the practices of his tribe when a strange and sudden tragedy forces him to come into full adult responsibility for the lives and health of others. Through a collection of near strangers his world is expanded. He grows to realize strongly that his world view may not be the only one out there.
Many reviews I have read from non-professionals like myself have stated that this book has a strong anti-religion theme. However, if anything it has a strong anti-tribalism theme (if you are thinking anti spears look up what tribalism actually means). The growth of this character isn't the rejection of his father's religion but the realization that just because it was the one he was raised with does not make it better than everyone else's.
Really, this book has a pro-religion theme as with many of Pratchett's works as while he might take the mic out of them from time to time the gods in this book definitely do exist. Philosophy has always been a strong theme in every book I have read by Mr. Pratchett and I think this is one of the defining reasons why I like his work. Well that, and the 4 or 5 hours I spend smiling and laughing after I put the book down just thinking of my favorite bits.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Rules for life
Comment: I just read this book for the second time and was just as moved as I was the first time. Unfortunately I am not a good enough writer to describe the emotions going through me when I read this book, but it is about responsibility, parents and children, the relationship between the young and old, knowledge and what it means, love of knowledge and what *that* means and lots of other things that are important in the process of making us different from, say, tree climbing octopi. Oh, and the story is sad, exciting and pretty damn good. I can't recommend this book enough. I have one sour comment, which could be made about all of Pratchetts's recent book but is particularly pertinent in his young adult books. We all like to think that if we want something enough, we work hard etc we can bend the world, or some desirable subset thereof, to our will. Pratchett says the same thing, although better than most. Unfortunately, that is not the way the world works, but the world is till beautiful. Enjoy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: While certainly appealing to his legions of existing devotees, NATION should help broaden Pratchett's fan base significantly
Comment: I was fortunate enough to discover Terry Pratchett's books about young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching a few years back. Since then, I've been recommending these titles --- and the rest of his stellar Discworld novels --- to friends and family, young and old alike. Pratchett is sometimes dismissed as only a humorist, an author of light fantasy that, while offering plenty of comedic social satire, doesn't have much backbone. I would beg to differ with that characterization of the Discworld series, which has as much heart as it does humor.
But, with the publication of NATION, a stand-alone novel that is not part of the Discworld oeuvre, Pratchett should silence those criticisms once and for all. NATION is at once adventurous and contemplative, playful and philosophical, and it should appeal to long-time devotees of the author and new fans alike.
NATION is not set in Discworld but rather in a world that bears a great deal of resemblance to our own in the mid-19th century. There are a few differences in history and geography, but cultural issues such as scientific investigation, the rights of women, and the role and responsibility of the monarchy and religion will certainly be familiar to any student of the Victorian period, even if Pratchett takes some delightful liberties with the historical record.
Ermintrude is the teenage daughter of the Governor of Port Mercia, who had been 139th in line for the throne of England. That is, until a bout of influenza wipes out everyone between him and the throne. The only problem? The presumptive king is thousands of miles away, governing one of the dozens of tiny tropical islands that dot the Southern Pelagic Ocean and contribute to the nation's extensive empire. His daughter is also at sea, on a ship called the Sweet Judy with an unscrupulous crew, eager to join her father. Neither one of them has any idea of the myriad ways in which their fortunes are about to change.
Ermintrude's fortune changes dramatically indeed, when a killer tsunami runs the Sweet Judy aground on a tiny island. Ermintrude is the only survivor of the shipwreck and, as she soon discovers, is one of only two people left alive on the devastated island. The other is Mau, a teenage boy who was in the process of successfully passing his manhood ceremony when the tsunami destroyed his entire Nation. Now Mau is confused about his place in the world. If he has left his boy's soul behind but not yet been given a man's soul, does that make him a human? A demon? Or something else entirely?
Mau and Ermintrude (who quickly takes this opportunity to rename herself Daphne instead of her given name, which she has always hated) don't have too much time to consider these philosophical details. There are hundreds of dead to be buried at sea, shelters to be made, fires to be built, new languages and customs to be learned, and, soon, as dozens of desperate refugees from other islands arrive at the Nation seeking support, other people's problems to which to attend.
Daphne, who has lived her whole life under the thumb of her martinet grandmother, soon discovers she has a passion for doctoring, a talent for making beer, and an appreciation for walking around in the tropical climate in just her petticoat and pantaloons. Mau, who continues to question his soul's worth and his own place in a warlike culture, grows into a capable, confident and kind chief of this new Nation. Together, Daphne and Mau develop a new civilization --- and learn truths about Mau's people's history that may change views of science, culture and religion forever.
NATION may be more philosophically dense and less broadly comic than most of Pratchett's Discworld novels. There's plenty of adventure to be had, though --- with shipwrecks, cannibals, murders and even a hidden sacred burial ground. While certainly appealing to his legions of existing devotees, NATION should help broaden his fan base significantly. It raises some of the most fundamental moral and ethical questions that humans have always struggled with, and then turns them on their head in ways surprising, thought provoking and, finally, eminently satisfying.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
Customer Rating:
Summary: Does Not Disappoint!
Comment: With "Nation," Terry Pratchett has once again defended his reputation for excellence and humor in stories of social and literary significance. To be honest, as his books are cranked out with significant prolificity (yes I made that word up), they have grown in social significance while the humor has become more subtle. In "Nation," Mr. Pratchett explores the myths of cultures in a coming of age story. Pratchett's stories are always worth reading and this one does not disappoint.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Terry Pratchett...a small god
Comment: Having read Terry Pratchett's whole catalogue of work after happening on the illustrated "Eric" many years back I never cease to be amazed at his wordsmanship and ability to paint the human condition so gently but piercingly. "Nation" is no exception. It is both gentle, quitely amusing and metaphysically raging and if it is, as some have suggested, based on his own current condition which has thrust his own mortality into his sights, then more accolades to him that he is still one of the most civilized voices on the island. The book is very readable and ponderable...i'm sure the Librarian would give it pride of place in the library should it fall into that world.
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