| Thursbitch | 
 enlarge | Author: Alan Garner
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy New: £2.44
You Save: £4.55 (65%)
New (12) Used (5) from £2.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 86565
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0099459361
EAN: 9780099459361
ASIN: 0099459361
Publication Date: September 2, 2004
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW - ***Delivery usually * 2 - 3 * working days - From Aphrohead of SOUTHPORT, Lancs, UK *** . Priority Airmail used Worldwide on International orders. Thanks from all at Aphrohead.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 An astonishing read.... February 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Once a year maybe, if you're lucky, you come across a book that takes you somewhere you've never been before. That's what I read books for anyhow. A combination of story, language and character usually does the trick. Thursbitch is a gem. Yes, it took a few pages to atune myself to the language of 18th Century Cheshire but the same thing happened 15 years ago when I first read White Jazz - then it was 1950s Los Angeles crime slang. Once you are on the book's wavelength and in its world, you will be transported by the author's imagination and his masterly style - even the modern dialog is fresh and original. Its a breath of fresh air from the pallid and bland fare you can sometime end up with.
characters speak for themselves; narrator speak for the landscape July 13, 2006
11 out of 16 found this review helpful
Alan Garner's mastery of language can never be questioned. After the wilful outpouring of verbiage and meaningless exposition in the last book I read (Marquez), the precision and brevity of Garner's writing was the return of a welcome friend. His method of letting characters speak for themselves whilst letting the narrator speak for the landscape remains both a joy and an inspiration.
His last novel, Strandloper, offered us one of the few twentieth century instances of originality in the narrative form. Its scope was writ large; across the globe, across history and across humanity. In comparison, Thursbitch's scope is perhaps more insular; but in its tale of ordinary folk it elicits more empathy and more passion. It is a yarn of intertwining time periods; of the contentment and responsibility of assured belief and the terror of upheaval and uncertainty.
Like all of Garner's work it imbeds an emotional resonance in the memory as landscape and instance might do. His work goes beyond literature.
Genius loci April 13, 2006
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
Go see the place then read or vice versa - a slim but incredibly powerful book - quite possibly Alan Garner's masterpiece.
 Obtuse and frustrating May 4, 2005
12 out of 32 found this review helpful
I was given this book as a Christmas gift and started it recently. Mercifully, it's a short piece of work. Perhaps I'm missing the point of it all, but I find the themes difficult to follow and my train journey in the morning is not improved by fighting my way through line after line of irritating dialogue in an ancient northern dialect! This is just not my cup of tea I'm afraid.
Delicate and Haunting April 11, 2005
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
This short book packs in a vast panorama - but this unfolds in your head rather than on the page. His poetic evocation of landscape through the lists of wonderful place-names is glorious, and the intertwined ghost stories - each period haunted by the spirits of the other - only become clear as the characters let you into their souls bit by bit.
If you love the ancient English countryside, and enjoy some real magic - read this book. The language is occassionally obscure but well worth the effort.
As a child I loved the Wierdstone of Brisinghamen and the Moon of Gomrath - and now that I am "grown-up", I was delighted to find an Alan Garner book for adults.
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