Held
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Held
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Narrated by:
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Anne Michaels
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By:
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Anne Michaels
About this listen
Bloomsbury presents Held written and read by Anne Michaels.
**The international bestseller**
**A Guardian Book of the Autumn 2023**
**Chosen as a book of the year by the independent.co.uk**
'Michaels’s writing continues to stand head and shoulders above most other fiction' OBSERVER
'Through luminous moments of chance, change, and even grace, Michaels shows us our humanity' MARGARET ATWOOD
'Michaels is exceptionally open to beauty' GUARDIAN
The triumphant new novel from the author of the Orange Prize-winning Fugitive Pieces: a soaring and luminous story of chance and change
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1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory – a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast – as the snow falls.
1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river – alive, but not still whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand.
So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.
Held is a novel like no other, by a writer at the height of her powers: affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom and compassion.
'I am blown away by the scale, beauty, weave and thinking of this book... It dances with words, time and ideas in a way that seems to reinvent everything I know about the novel' RACHEL JOYCE
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What listeners say about Held
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Craig Martin Jones
- 12-08-24
Exceptional but…
The story is compelling. The writing was exceptional and allowed me to see and feel the characters. It was very powerful, but the narration, albeit by the author, was for me, disappointing.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- EEL
- 11-08-24
Should have hired an actor?
This lovely lyric prose and the novel’s vast reach —temporally from 1908 to 2025 and geographically from Brest to Yorkshire—needed a reader able to inhabit the various voices and accents. Instead, the author reads it all in the same breathy, Canadian-accented voice that flattens it all out as if it’s a long nostalgic poem at a single pace. I understand that publishers want this authorial imprimatur but didn’t personally find it effective and even thought it detracted from the novel.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- liz
- 21-03-24
Extraordinary prose
This is a beautifully written book which is full of amazing thoughts, events, theories and ideas . The narrative is compelling and the themes fascinating. It is bursting with sentences , theories and viewpoints that you want to record and return to .
I wasn’t thrilled with the narration .. it lacked vigour.. but that’s simply a personal preference. A wonderful piece of writing .
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Judi Spoons
- 22-12-24
What a Dirge!
I admire Anne Michaels, I have bought several of her books, novels and poetry. I was so excited to start this new, much-acclaimed book yet within 20 minutes, the monotonous tone of her narration forced me to turn it off. I have tried again & again to listen but my irritation stops any enjoyment of the beautiful prose. I have bought a paper version for my daughter and trust she will let me borrow it when finished as I know I can never finish this audio book.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Dr. Ka Mckinnell
- 06-11-24
Lyrical
This book is not a storybook to be read at speed. I found I needed to stop and consider the authors meaning and philosophical thought after most sentences. It’s hard work but worth every beautiful sentence.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Franklin
- 02-12-24
Exceptionally beautiful
Exceptionally beautiful poetic and thought provoking. Also gripping. Very unusual. Memorable. Universal ideas explored. Very enjoyable to listen to and relaxing as an experience thanks to the performance.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- paul
- 25-09-24
Boring. Just words. Can’t even remember the start.
I agree with one of the other reviewers. Dreary. Pretentious. Couldn’t retain any of the story. And didn’t care.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- HappyLuckyAlix
- 22-09-24
Dreary and pretentious
My first selection from the Booker shortlist, I was looking forward a to well-written and exceptional listen. I was not just disappointed, but angry to have had my time wasted. The book is series of vignettes more than a novel with no sense of plot. The characters are thin, lacking in texture or personality, and all communicate by way of heavy philosophising instead of dialogue. I found this continual turning to profound statement-making evidence that the writer was too lazy write convincing dialogue or work on crafting a plot. All the scenes and situations portentous and dour. A dreadfully dull offering only made worse by the lugubrious reading, monotone at best and regularly falling into a sort of hushed, gasping melodrama. Dreadful.
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