|
The Secret Life of Bees (Audio CD)
by Sue Monk Kidd
| Category:
Fiction, Original books |
| Market price: ¥ 368.00
MSL price:
¥ 348.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Vivid chapters capture the South Carolinian summer, and the sweet and bitter realities of life, love and family. A great read for women, young and old! |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
|
| |
AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 16 items |
|
|
Ellen Goodman (San Jose Mercury News), (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
A morality tale full of honey and salvation that manages to avoid the stickiness. |
|
|
Joanna Trollope (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
"I am amazed that this moving, original, and accomplished book is a first novel. It is wonderfully written, powerful, poignant, and humorous, and takes a line which is - refreshingly - strongly female without being cliche-feminist. It is also deliciously eccentric, which lifts it out of the usual category of a rite-of-passage novel into the realms of real distinction. DO read it."
|
|
|
Luanne Rice (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
"The Secret Life of Bees is a novel of love and almost unbelievable courage, the quest of one young girl in search of her mother and so much more. Sue Monk Kidd takes on huge things, and by writing about what is mysterious, even difficult, in life, illuminates what is beautiful. She proves that a family can be found where you least expect it-maybe not under your own roof, but in that magical place where you find love. The Secret Life of Bees is a gift, filled with hope."
|
|
|
Ursula Hegi (author of The Vision of Emma Blau), (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
"Sue Monk Kidd is an extraordinary storyteller. In "The Secret Life of Bees," she explores a young girl's search for the truth about her mother; her courage to tear down racial barriers; and her joy as she claims her place within a community of women. Beautifully written." |
|
|
Jean E. Pouliot (MSL quote), Newburyport, MA United States
<2007-01-24 00:00>
At age 4, Lily Owens shot her Ma - you'll find this out soon enough. But that act has set her life on a path of sadness, isolation and misery at the hands of her miserable-excuse-for-a-father, T Ray. By age 14, she decides to run away with her black live-in caretaker, Rosaline. After an ugly encounter with the town racists, Lily and Rosaline run off to parts unknown, guided only by a picture of the Black Madonna that belonged to Lily's mother. The picture leads to the duo to a trio of black beekeeping sisters who take in the runaways while trying to figure out what to do with them.
"The Secret Life of Bees" is a wonderful book for a Catholic like myself. The beekeepers - August, May and June Boatwright - had a Catholic mother from whom they inherited (and modified) a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Their devotion is half Catholic piety and half backwoods paganism, but is thoroughly soulful and beautiful. Lily's time with the sisters (and their men and women friends) begins a process of coming to terms with her life through the agency of learning about beekeeping.
Sue Monk Kidd's writing was kaleidoscopically colorful and wonderful. Her images fell over one another like a stream of honey from the mouth of a honey jar. Some paraphrases that I pull from memory: squinted eyes as thin as pennies; a splash of blue water like a peacock's tail; a half moon sitting like a coin dropping into a vending machine. Amazing. The book was best when it balanced dangerous situations against the sweetness and inner strength of its female characters. The book's long, languorous middle section -- which focused almost entirely on the female figures in the story - threatened to bog down in treacle. Also, the 1964 relationship between whites and blacks was a bit too chummy in places to be real. But all told, the nobility and flaws of the characters made them charming and attractive, especially August, the woman of wisdom and heart who made Lily her special project.
Audio book reader Karen White was magnificent, giving voice to everyone from teenaged Lily to gentle August to raging T. Ray. White's sense of adolescent wonder and joy sometimes was wearing, but on the whole, she gave a very satisfying performance.
"Secret Life" is on a par with other books about Southern US sisterhood, notable "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." I recommend this book not only for women looking for a sense of empowerment and bonding, but to men who wish to share in the delight of women standing together in celebration of their femininity. As a Catholic, I also enjoyed the characters' unabashed love for Our Lady - not as a lofty and remote plaster statue on a pedestal, but as a living force that can be harnessed for strength and wholeness of being. |
|
|
Brauna Go (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd is a multi dimensional story in many ways. I have actually read the book previously a number of years ago and it was very interesting to read it for a second time once I have grown older and wiser. At first it seemed to be a simple story of a young black girl and her experiences with bees and honey and overall happiness. But the story is actually much deeper than that. I chose the book because I wanted to see if growing personally would change my perspective on the novel. In the end I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. I read it in about a week and had trouble putting it down each night.
Set in South Carolina in 1964, a period of intense racism and overall discrimination, Lily is forced to live with her father T-ray a cruel man who spends more time beating Lily than teaching her anything at all as a father. Lily's mother, Deborah Owens, was killed when Lily was four years old and she feels that she is the one responsible for her mother's death because T-ray told her that she did in fact pick up a gun and shoot it, thus killing her mother. The only memory she actually has of the death is extremely blurred and hazy. There semi-mother figure in the house, the housekeeper, Rosaleen, but Rosaleen isn't nearly as maternal and loving as Deborah used to be.
One day Rosaleen ventures off into town because it has been learnt that blacks are now allowed to vote. However, upon her arrival white men in the town scoffed at her, and yelled at her. At this Rosaleen pours black snuff on the shoes of the white men which consequently puts her in jail. Once hearing this news, Lily, equipped with a box full of memorabilia from her mother, sets off to save and run away with Rosaleen. The two are successful and end up embarking on a great journey to Tiburon, South Carolina, the name of the town printed on one of the objects that belonged to Deborah. Lily and Rosaleen end up being welcomed into the home of three unconventional and free-spirited women named May, June, and August Boatwright. The three sisters are actually bee-keepers and Lily becomes fascinated with their way of life and not only learns lessons of bee-keeping but also of love, death, devotion, prayer, which cause her to grow as a human being emotionally.
It was a quick read but Sue Monk Kidd used very descriptive language when talking about the feelings of Lily. Kidd kept a rather honest and serious tone throughout the course of the book; however there were parts that were comical especially with Rosaleen's dialect as well as the various occasions that the sisters celebrated. The reader is almost on an emotional rollercoaster with the various tragedies and happy love affairs that occur. Overall, I would recommend the novel to a friend if they were interesting in a light read that means a lot but is not too serious or difficult of a read.
|
|
|
Minna Minocha (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
The prose in this book is interesting and fresh, and the metaphors are vivid. That said, the plot is like a 1000 other books out there.
The main character thinks there's a dark family secret. There is. She goes and finds some black people who are really angels in disguise (in effect though not literally) who can tell her what's wrong.
I'm getting tired of angels disguised as black people. It's not original any more. Steven King did it in "The Green Mile." Chris Rock did it in "Dogma." Perfectly kind, sweet black people who can tell you all the secrets and have magic powers of healing (either emotional or physical) are a stereotype.
|
|
|
C. J. Hardman (MSL quote), San Diego, CA USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
Sue Monk Kidd has composed a tale which includes elements of danger, discovery, and sisterhood. It is of course, a story, a fantasy. Set in South Carolina of 1964, orphaned Lily is our protagonist and narrator, pulling the story of her Mother's past together through memories, experience, and eavesdropped bits of conversation gleaned over the hydrangea bushes.
Lily details her life learning the craft of beekeeping with three Black sisters in Tiburon, South Carolina and her passage from girlhood to womanhood in the midst of a United States struggling with its own racial identity. A well-constructed novel with a plot worth following, the bees and their honey serve as a metaphore for life lived and the stings and sweetness Lily and her adoptive sisters experience along the way. This is one of the better works of fiction I've chanced to read lately. Monk Kidd's style flows well, and I'm eager to see her other work.
|
|
|
Donna K. (MSL quote), Long Island, NY
<2007-01-24 00:00>
This was an outstanding historical glimpse into life in the south during the civil rights era. At times, it seemed a lot like books I was required to read in high school, rather than something I'd chose to read for pleasure. Who knows? Maybe this will become a classic to rival To Kill a Mockingbird?! I also felt that at times, the plot unfolded too neatly to be realistic (ex: how the runaways so easily and conveniently found the Calendar Sisters). Still, it was a gallant and commendable first effort by the author, and definitely worthwhile reading. Attention to detail was impeccable and the sense of family/sisterhood was very heartwarming. |
|
|
M. Franta (MSL quote), Walnut, CA United States
<2007-01-24 00:00>
Sue Monk Kidd is an incredibly desciptive writer; not only in decribing the setting of her story but also in how she describes the feelings of her charactor in this novel, The Secret Life of Bees. Lily Owens in the protagonist in this novel, who is tortured by her abusive father but even worse, her earliest memories that swirl around her deceased mother.
Kidd spins her yarn in the first person point of view, which is very effective in evoking emotion from her elegant prose in this, her first novel.
What an amazing novel it is, my friends.
I loved reading her thoughts, that are abundantly sprinkled on each page, like a beautiful dried flower from your grannie's flower garden. Take this thought, for example:
The Honey Song:
"Place a beehive on my grave
and let the honey soak through.
When I'm dead ad gone,
that's what I want from you.
The streets of heaven are gold and sunny,
but I'll stick to my plot and pot of honey.
Place a beehive on my grave,
and let the honey soak through."
Wow...it just leaves a reader wanting more...like a spoonful of honey tastes like....more!
Kidd describes scenes in such a magical way...she truly has magical thought that lifts your thinking...here's another..
"That night, in my bed in the honey house, when I closed my eyes, bee hum ran through my body. Ran through the whole earth. It was the oldest sound ther was. Souls flying away."
This book starts off running and you're able to keep up despite the rapid pace. I loved it and I recommend you read it and savor each word as if it were a loving spoonful of honey for you to taste and devour to your good health!
|
|
|
|
1 2 | Total 2 pages 16 items |
|
|
|
|
|
|
