|
| The Highest Tide: A Novel | 
| Author: Jim Lynch
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $23.94 (100%)
New (25) Collectible (9) from $4.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 311879
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 1582346054
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781582346052
ASIN: 1582346054
Publication Date: September 8, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Darwin's barnacles as New Age crystals? February 8, 2006
10 out of 20 found this review helpful
I have spent many afternoons exploring tidepools and mudflats, so I looked forward to reading this book. What a disappointment. Sure the descriptions of marine curiosities are pleasing but they cannot bear the weight of the author's efforts at symbolism. It is a book that is built on some of the more beautiful aspects of science but really wants to be a New Age magical realism kind of thing. It does not "go." The dissonance is way too irritating. Like combining Darwin with mysticism. It hurts to read. And by the way, I'm astounded that the author does not credit all that barnacle info at least indirectly to Darwin who still rules as the greatest barnacle expert and especially in the area of sexual selection in barnacles.
Which brings me to the book's other obsession. The sex lives of 13 year old boys are already embarrassing. But come on! Would that the writer had put the same care into writing about this topic as he does about polykete worms. It's boring, cliche, and sexist to boot. Yuck. The occasional misogynistic threads are irritating enough to want to toss it. And I am a forgiving reader who makes a point of reading debut fiction and buying it even in hardback.
Way too many smudges of sky and repetitive imagery. The side characters are underdeveloped. The center does not hold.
Not recommended. If you like bio-fiction, read Andrea Barrett instead.
 Number 1 best book of the year! December 23, 2005
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
This was my book of the year! As an older male who has been going to the Maine seacoast for some time, and who had my oldest granddaughter read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring when she was a young girl, I fell in love with this book before the 5th page!
Congratulations to Jim Lynch, the author for having written a wonderful story. My recomendation is that if you love the sea and marvel at the mystery of of the tides then GET THIS BOOK!
You've got to be kidding me... December 23, 2005
8 out of 23 found this review helpful
Got this based on the strength of the ringing reviews. Since I've read this, I can't help but wonder if all these ringing reviews are from friends and family of the author. Sure seems it. This in no way deserves all these 5 stars! I've read hundreds and hundreds of "literary" novels. This is the worst book I've read in years. Just because a book uses flowery prose doesn't mean it's written well. The few honest reviews seem to have it right: this is overwritten (and poorly written). I hated most how the author talks down to his readers like we're all a bunch of dummies. Buy anything else but don't buy this.
couldn't put it down November 11, 2005
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
I started this book on the couch, moved to the bathtub, and finished in bed at midnight, the same day. What a read! Funny at times, pathetic at times, this teenage hero helped me look at the world with wonder again. Jim Lynch has crossed Rachel Carson with J.D. Salinger and given us a new American classic.
"Explaining Strange and Wonderful Things" November 4, 2005
35 out of 40 found this review helpful
Jim Lynch's extraordinary first novel centers around a runty thirteen year old boy who knows more than the local marine biologist about the teeming life in the mud flats of Puget Sound and its coves. Narrator Miles O'Malley is an insomniac who takes his battered kayak into the sound at night while his parents and the rest of the town sleep. He collects unusual specimens for aquariums and collectors, and digs for clams with his friend Phelps to sell to local restaurants. In the middle of the night, Miles hears the final exhalation of a dying giant squid. His discovery of the enormous creature never before found on the shores of North America prompts a rush of media attention. At first, no one questions how Miles managed to find the squid in the middle of the night despite his poorly fabricated lie, but when he discovers other non-native sea life and anomalies in the sea and tidal pools, he becomes an object of local fascination. Miles just wants to remain invisible. He is neglected by his parents, who have their own problems, and he struggles with his awkward crush on Angie, an eighteen-year-old, body-pierced girl who plays bass in a grunge band.
Miles is an avid reader of Rachel Carson and her moving descriptions of the ocean, but Lynch, through the voices of Miles, offers his own memorable descriptions of the life, both human and otherwise, that depends on Puget Sound. The narrative voice, with its honesty, wry humor, and poetic language, distinguishes this novel from so many other coming-of-age stories. Insightful without being dogmatic, sensitive without being melodramatic, the prose finds the perfect balance and pitch. Not unlike the earthquake that rattles Olympia--"it shook us just long enough and hard enough to make us feel helpless . . . and just short enough and mercifully enough not to kill us"--the writing makes the reader question her assumptions about the uniformity of marine life and of personal experience.
With this impressive debut, Lynch proves himself a writer to watch. His confident style guides the reader through an odd yet believable world where sea stars can be of any color and thirteen-year-old boys can befriend judges, psychics, and cult leaders. Readers will finish this novel with a sigh not unlike that of the giant squid marooned on the beach.
|
|
|
Wildlife, nature and the Environment
Sponsored Links
Learn how to get your own Amazon Book shop | |
