2024 the best of times song review

Price: $8.99
(as of Nov 18, 2024 04:43:15 UTC - Details)

Sunset Song is a 1932 novel by Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon. It is considered one of the most important Scottish novels of the 20th century. It is the first part of the trilogy A Scots Quair. The central character is a young woman, Chris Guthrie, growing up in a farming family in the fictional parish of Kinraddie in the Mearns at the start of the 20th century. Life is hard, and her family is dysfunctional.

Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell (13 February 1901 – 7 February 1935), a Scottish writer. He was best known for A Scots Quair, a trilogy set in the north-east of Scotland in the early 20th century, of which all three parts have been serialised on BBC television.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CSMWDYV8
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Passerino (January 16, 2024)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 16, 2024
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2003 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 311 pages
Reviewer: Mary L
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A moving pre-WWI story, woman as central character, rich descriptions of landscape and people
Review: I ordered and read this book after watching the movie adaptation. The author brings forth Scottish culture and values pre-WWI. Chris, the central character, is well-developed and constantly evolving toward a deeper understanding of self. The author seems able to take the reader into the world of Chris, her understandings, frustrations, hopes and experiences.An appendix is provided for people and places of the time.A glossary is provided for Scottish words.I read the book in about a week. It was a very pleasurable experience.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Well worth the read
Review: This is a classic of Scottish literature. The first novel is likely the most read, but the other two follow main characters through several decades of their lives. It is definitely a good read for anyone interested in the social history of Scotland's rural population in the early 20th century. The trilogy shows how all the social, political and economic factors of the times affected the poor. Too often, we only read/see how such factors affected the wealthy, e.g. the characters in Downton Abbey. So, the trilogy gives the reader a more rounded sense of what it was like to live through these times. The attempt to replicate rural dialects can be charming, but members of my book club whose first language is not English, found the language to be hard work.

Reviewer: B. Scott
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Scottish Revelation
Review: This is one of my favorite books. Though written by a man, it presents a woman's point of view in a harsh rural setting in Scotland at the turn of the century. Some people might find it tedious to wade through the first chapter because it presents the history of a town since the dawn of civilization: it setting, legends, and characters. I found it fascinating because it gave me the feeling, when the contemporary story began, that I had grown up in the area and knew the background on all of the characters that cross the main character's path. The main character is Chris, a young teenage woman who experiences her family's move to the countryside around Aberdeen, Scotland. Her vivid descriptions of the landscape, the people she encounters, and her family make this an uncommon story of a young woman's spirit and experience. Because Chris has experienced some education and excelled in her studies, her manner of speaking alternates between proper English and the rural dialect of the region, giving the reader a sense of what was happening throughout Scotland's countryside at the time: the intrusion of modernity into ancient rhythms and rural, isolated ways of being. Harsh, glorious, and heartbreaking, the story took me inside of Chris--her heart and mind. She is part of my memory now as though I had really known her and the contradictions of family life in rural Scotland more than 100 years ago.

Reviewer: Ralph E Avery
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Terrific book!
Review: A powerful, lyric ode to the vanishing of a way of life. Vivid characters, a beautiful, warts and all, portrait of village life in northeastern Scotland through the end of WWI. Musical and poetic and intensely moving. The author uses many Scottish expressions, making if somewhat difficult for a modern reader, but the sense is very clear and the effort more than rewarded. Don’t miss it!

Reviewer: Pauline C
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Scottish story telling at its finest.
Review: This book was on our reading list in senior school, and I failed to make it through. However, when I did the play, which I loved, I reread the book and fell in love with it. The language is somewhat difficult to tune into at first, but persevere and you will find yourself on a journey with young Chris as she grows up on a farm in the Mearns of Scotland. It is a coming of age story through the first world war and beyond. You will fall in love with all her neighbors and fight along side of her as she struggles to maintain her life.

Reviewer: reader jane
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Four Stars
Review: Wonderful writing, evocative of the Scotch musical way of speaking. Memorable, engaging characters

Reviewer: P. Hooper
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: times past
Review: Obviously a classic detailing that era, but somewhat hard going at first but as the story developed I found I could empathize with the characters

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: You will remember this one, long after you've finished it.
Review: Just loved it! Since I'm a "chapter reader" who doesn't like to end my reading time before I come to the end of a chapter, this was a challenge! Only 4 chapters! I finished it to the detriment of all of the other things I had to do, but it was worth it. I will buy the other book in the series. It gave me a different slant on the war as far as Scots are concerned.

Reviewer: Moumita Debnath
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: the scottish dialect runs pretty fast on the tongue, or well just the mind too. ;)i could not stop reading it once i began.....the action never slows down, even the descriptions are such a design!this has to be one of the best novels to exist.

Reviewer: Montealto
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Sunset Song is a remarkable novel by the little known Scottish writer from the early twentieth century, Lewis Grassic Gibbon. In a sweeping prologue covering several centuries he writes a stream of consciousness history of the land in central Scotland that will become the home of his main character, a farm girl of extraordinary resilience. Much use is made of the Scots dialect to give authenticity to the dialogue of the characters and their strong connection to the land. Though largely unknown abroad, this novel and its two sequels are well known in Scotland, highly regarded and have been made into stage plays and films. The author died in his early thirties. An outstanding achievement!

Reviewer: Client d'Amazon
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Envie de lire le livre après avoir vu le film. Je ne connaissais pas cet auteur et ce fut une bien agréable découverte. Livre d'une grande sensibilité ,personnages attachants, descriptions convaincantes. On le ferme à regrets.

Reviewer: David Morris
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Justifiably regarded as one of, if not the, finest Scottish novels ever written. Layered, textured, full of love and humour for its characters and their setting. At the same time Gibbon looks deep into the darkness and the contradictions in the Scottish psyche. In Chis Guthrie we have a literary rarity, a strong female central character written by a make author. Her voice sings from the pages. Her love of the Mearns and its people is clear for all to see, but so is the tension between that love and her awareness of its limitations and a wider freer world beyond. The poetry of the writing never falters. Non Scots speakers shouldn't be put off by the dialect in which the whole story is told. The language is as essential to the world Gibbon evokes as the soil from which it springs. A joy of a read

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Brilliant book - very moving - would recommendNO GLOSSARY - NO APPENDIX - instead a random thesis on Light and Colour but students from Hull and Salford .....will be asking for a complete copy