North Dakota State Library

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2022

Format:	Eaudiobook, Audio Books, Nonmusical Sound Recording, Sound Recording, Electronic Resources
Author:	Yanagihara, Hanya
Title:	A Little Life [electronic resource] / Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher, Date:	[S.I.] : Books on Tape, 2022.
Summary:	NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” ( NPR ) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.
Other Contributor:	Wyman, Oliver Overdrive Inc.
Notes:	OverDrive MP3 Audiobook audiobook-mp3 946420240 OverDrive Listen audiobook-overdrive 946356753
ISBN:	9780593559895
System Availability:	0
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Current Holds:	0
Medium:	[electronic resource]

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New York Times Review

EMPIRE OF DECEPTION: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation, by Dean Jobb. (Algonquin, $16.95.) In 1920s Chicago, Leo Koretz defrauded hundreds of people (including members of his own family) and lured them to invest millions of dollars in bogus overseas projects. Jobb's rollicking history of the con man doubles as a sobering reminder that, as our reviewer, Paula Uruburu, said, "those who think everything is theirs for the taking are destined to be taken." GOD HELP THE CHILD, by Toni Morrison. (Vintage, $14.95.) Even as a baby, Bride, the character at the heart of this story, was spurned by her parents because of her dark skin, and her cold upbringing reverberates throughout her adult life. The novel, which our reviewer, Kara Walker, called "a brisk modern-day fairy tale with shades of the Brothers Grimm," delivers a blunt moral: "What you do to children matters." THERE WAS AND THERE WAS NOT: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond, by Meline Toumani. (Picador/Metropolitan/Holt, $18.) Growing up in an Armenian community in New Jersey, Toumani was steeped in fierce anti-Turkish rhetoric revolving around the genocide that began in 1915. As an adult, she moved to Istanbul to better understand the Turkish view. Her memoir recounts her years living amid an alternate understanding of history. A LITTLE LIFE, by Hanya Yanagihara. (Anchor, $17.) This expansive novel is an exploration of heartbreak and the limits of human resilience. Yanagihara's central character, Jude, emerges from a brutal childhood and builds an ostensibly successful life - he graduates with a law degree from Harvard, finds meaningful work as a litigator and is the heart of a close-knit group of friends - yet struggles to reconcile his past traumas. OUR LIVES, OUR FORTUNES AND OUR SACRED HONOR: The Forging of American Independence, 1774-1776, by Richard R. Beeman. (Basic Books, $18.99.) American independence from Britain may seem to have been an inevitable outcome, but Beeman offers a window into a time when that future was not so certain. His account follows the 22 months when delegates from the colonies, often with no more in common with one another than their status as British subjects, imagined a cohesive nation and identity. OUTLAWS, by Javier Cercas. Translated by Anne McLean. (Bloomsbury, $18.) In the late 1970s, when teenage gangs roamed post-Franco Spain, this novel's narrator, Ignacio Cañas, joined a group headed by a notorious outlaw, Zarco, but left after a failed robbery. Years later, Cañas is a successful lawyer and Zarco is in jail, but the men's lives intersect again. STALIN. VOLUME I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928, by Stephen Kotkin. (Penguin, $25.) This book, the first of a projected three-volume study, recounts Stalin's childhood in Georgia and subsequent rise to power. Kotkin's account also delivers an impressive history of late imperial Russia.

Library Journal Review

Yanagihara follows her debut novel, The People in the Trees, with a deceptively simple tale of four male friends, Jude, Willem, Malcolm, and JB, who meet during their college years at Ivy League institutions. The men choose to continue their journeys into adulthood together by relocating jointly to New York. As they sustain their friendships into their fifties, the author delivers tales of their loyalty, love, and support for one another. However, lying beneath the surface is an emotionally disturbing story line about Jude, a highly successful lawyer and the brightest of the four men. The horrors of Jude's victimization during his youth by the brothers of a monastery and his eventual abduction by Brother Luke, a pedophile and pimp, force him to struggle relentlessly with inner demons and a deep-seated distrust of others, with his pain manifested in constant acts of cutting. VERDICT As in her previous novel, Yanagihara fearlessly broaches difficult topics while simultaneously creating an environment that her audience will find caring and sensitive. Not all readers will embrace this work, given its intense subject. However, for those strong of stomach or bold enough to follow the characters' road of friendship, this heartbreaking story certainly won't be easily forgotten.-Shirley Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Yanagihara follows her 2013 debut novel, The People in the Trees, with an epic American tragedy. The story begins with four college friends moving to New York City to begin their careers: architect Malcolm, artist JB, actor Willem, and lawyer Jude. Early on, their concerns are money and job related as they try to find footholds in their respective fields. Over the course of the book, which spans three decades, we witness their highs and lows as they face addiction, deception, and abuse, and their relationships falter and strengthen. The focus narrows as the story unspools-and really, this is Jude's story. Unlike his friends, who have largely ordinary lives, Jude has a horrific trauma in his past, and his inner demons are central to the story. Throughout the years, Jude struggles to keep his terrible childhood secret and to trust those who love him. He cuts himself and contemplates suicide, even as his career flourishes and his friends support him. This is a novel that values the everyday over the extraordinary, the push and pull of human relationships-and the book's effect is cumulative. There is real pleasure in following characters over such a long period, as they react to setbacks and successes, and, in some cases, change. By the time the characters reach their 50s and the story arrives at its moving conclusion, readers will be attached and find them very hard to forget. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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