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Bewilderment

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Bewilderment

By: Richard Powers
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021.

The brand new novel from the Pulitzer prize-winning, booker prize-shortlisted author of The Overstory.

Picked as one of the Best Books of 2021 in the Sunday Times.

Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son, Robin, is funny, loving and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade, for smashing his friend's face with a metal thermos.

What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, while all the while fostering his son's desperate campaign to help save this one.

©2021 Richard Powers (P)2021 Penguin Audio Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Space Exploration Interstellar Emotionally Gripping Heartfelt Thought-Provoking Tear-jerking Solar System

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All stars
Most relevant  
Richard Powers didn’t think he would be able to write again after putting his soul into Overstory. And yet he did. And he wrote this.

Ezra Klein describes this as the Inner Story of Powers’ animist, interconnected philosophy, first articulated in the Outer story of the Overstory.

It is every bit as brilliant as it’s counterpart. But in a totally different way.

The narration of this adds to the book - great work Edoardo - subtle, poignant and perfect.

Read it and weep.

Awe inspiring

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I wasn’t in the right mood for this and it left me feeling bleak. Some good points on science, nature and the environment. I felt so sorry for Robin and his motherless life. I see so many children medicated for being different so I could understand the father’s fears. However at the end I wondered if he had been too rigid. Excellent on the American situation too. Would make a good book club one for a mixed group with some scientists. It might win the Booker but unlikely to be as popular with readers.

Powerful

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This book was a reco and I didn’t know what expect. It was moving and sad but also beautiful. I wanted to hear more

Moving, complex and beautiful

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This book has you rooting for the 2 main characters from the get go. You feel their emotions and embark on the journey with them.
the narrator is particularly great and really suits this story.

Really lovely book

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Bewilderment indeed. links between human mind and and the cosmos explored in a a great story about love and bereavement.

A very interesting read

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I thought that The Understorey was good; this surpasses that for me. The storyline is engaging, uplifting & heartbreaking at the same time. The device of using the son’s questioning to explore the environmental issues very clever. The writing was so perfect and the narrator chosen a perfect fit for this novel. I didn’t want it to end!
It is bleak, as another reviewer has said - but the message of the book needs it to be & there are plenty of moments of brilliance to carry you through.

Mindblowingly good

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A beautiful ‘sequel’ to The Overstory. The relationship between the narrator and his autistic son is true and heartfelt.

Love and Loss

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This is another fantastic piece by Richard Powers. The novel will unfortunately and somewhat unfairly always be compared to his masterpiece The Overstory. However this is a very different work it is a lot tighter and more emotionally intense focusing on a father son relationship. Powers environmentalism is as strong as always as he begs us to open our eyes and the descriptions of the natural world border on the poetic.

As a father I found the work highly emotional and was moved on a number of occasions.

Environmentalism often fills me with a sense of despair and at time nihilism. I try my best I walk to work, I plant trees and I recycle my yogurt pots but what difference can that make in the face of mass environmental vandalism committed by the capitalist system we live under. This novel really helped me to understand these feelings as my hope aligned with Robin yet the reality of the god awful mess we are creating was often highlighted by Theo and in the times of his tragic despair by Robin also.

The narration was also very well done.

Another fantastic work

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loved it. very original and likeable characters. unusual storyline. Very good narration by Edoardo Ballerini.

Astonishing and highly original

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Clever, powerful, thought provoking. Deeply moving story of father and son trying to navigate grief and loss on a planetary as well as personal scale. Found narrator’s style a little odd at first but quickly learned to love it.

Brilliant

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