This Book is about a king who lives in a castle. He has a baker called Adrian.The King always eats eggs. Adrian makes the king chicken eggs,goose eggs,duck eggs.Then he shouts More More More! The Next day he read in his Newspaper that a dodos egg was spotted on an island.So he told Adrian to prepare the boat.To get to The island.

Just to be clear because I didn't see anything specific on this page---this is a single tape of the author reading from her 2 books. She says at the beginning that she will read the last 2 chapters of HOUSEKEEPING. I can't say (because I don't have the book handy) that both chapters are on this tape.
It is nice to hear Marilynne Robinson reading her own work; that makes this purchase worth it. But I was looking for the whole book, read by anyone.

In a life time of reading one may come across a book or two written with both great passion and linguistic craft. Marilynne Robinson's Mother Country is one such work. These two hundred thirty odd pages bristle and glisten with insight, logic, and control of the Mother tongue mustered in a searing indictment of the British state plutonium reprocessing business at Sellafield. The details and extent of Britain's mindless pollution of the natural environment will shock most readers. First, however, all but the Philistine will be stunned by Ms. Robinson's art, wisdom, depth of feeling, and mastery of English prose. Among a few books I unreservedly recommend

Housekeeping is a wonderful book to read. It is a story about finding and having a place to belong. The main character, Ruth and her younger sister Lucille grow up in one house but are raised by four different members of their family. Throughout the book it is clear that Ruth and her sister never lose the feeling of being homeless and alone. On page 66 Lucille says that she is tired of being alone and wants to find other people. Then Sylvie replies "Loneliness bothers lots of people....".
I really enjoyed reading this book because I was able to get inside the characters' head and feel like I was in the story. Everything was so real it was like I was Ruth and I was feeling what she felt. And all the images painted such a clear picture for me, that just added to my feelings towards the book. But what I didn't like about this book was that there was no happy ending. It ended with no conclusion. I would have liked to kept on reading about what happened with Lucille and Ruth and Sylvie.
I would highly recommend this book to someone because it was a good story and it had situations that people could really relate to. I also liked the style of writing that the author used. She starts out by giving some background information and then takes the story form there. Another great thing she does is she introduces the different characters as they come in and tells a bit about them. She also does a great job in using descriptive words so that the reader is able to picture the scene from the book in his or her head. "...suave cones or mounds, single or in heaps or clusters, green, brown, or white depending on the time of day." It was a wonderful story and I wouldn't mind reading it again.

Those who have reviewed this book saying its unprobable or doesn't pull them into the characters lives must have been doing something wrong. Either they were forced to read it, and didn't spend enough time suspending disbelief to allow the plot to work into them, or they have ADD. Anyone with a reasonable amount of time on their hands and the desire to be geniunely affected by a person's words must read Marilynne Robinson's "Housekeeping." I think those who criticize her for being overly descriptive have never realized how difficult it must be to write 4 pages describing an everyday thing without rehashing the same thoughts over and over.

I loved this book, mainly for her ability to describe things in ways you'd never consider. Secondly, I love the book for Ms. Robinson's skill at letting you completely inside the mind of the character, but still keeping you distanced from their feelings. Even the protagonist in the book, a girl named Ruthie whom you grow to know well, makes you question her actions and whether she is truly happy or just ignorant of the possibility of being sad. Ms. Robinson pulls you into to the plot (if it can be called a plot) with her haunting vision of an unfortunate childhood in a small town. Third, I loved this book because Marilynne proves that is possible to write a deep and poignant novel without inapporpriate language to express herself. The fact that she did not use one swear word in the book truly shows her master of expression.

If you are the type of person who demands fast action over intriquite writing, please don't buy this book. But if you are a true lover of good literature, this is a book you'll want to own and read again and again.

HOUSEKEEPING is a book that is a joy to read, simply by virtue of the carefully constructed yet flowing language employed by the author. It's a challenge for the reader to pace themselves so as not to pass by any of the innumerable shining passages that lie within. The novel speaks to the heart and soul about the transitory state that our lives exemplify, of our expectations and their consequences on our experiences of life.

There is a history of tragedy -- both real and as perceived by those on the outside -- in the family depicted. The story is told by Ruthie -- she and her sister Lucille (who is younger, but more socially aware and mature) have been orphaned. Their mother has delivered them to the home of their grandmother in the small, remote town of Fingerbone (great name!), then disappeared -- they learn later that she has driven in a friend's car off a cliff into the nearby lake, where their grandfather perished many years before when the train on which he was riding left the bridge and plunged into the icy waters.

Ruthie and Lucille are raised for a time by their grandmother. She is a reserved, slightly distant woman -- but she loves them in her own way, caring for them and seeing to their needs. At the beginning of chapter 2, on p. 29, the girls awaken to find her dead: '...after five years, my grandmother one winter morning eschewed awakening.' Enter their two great aunts, Lily and Nora, who move to Fingerbone from San Francisco (giving up their cherished lifestyle and home, as they remind the girls quite often) in order to care for Ruthie and Lucille. These two are some of the most gently comic characters I have run across in years -- perhaps because they remind me a bit of my own great aunts, with whom I spent a lot of time when I was a child. The conversations between them are priceless -- I actually had tears running down my cheeks from laughing. Lily and Nora don't last long -- they don't die, but they're simply not up to the task of caring for two young girls. The reality of it overwhelms them completely -- they begin to imagine every conceivable scenario of disaster and flee back to the city, having lured the girls' aunt Sylvie to take over for them.

Sylvie is a piece of work -- and her character and influence on the girls is the mighty engine that drives the rest of the story. She has long been separated from the rest of her family, traveling all over the country as a transient, 'riding the rails' from one place to another. She is a brilliantly-drawn character, gentle and thoughtful (if a bit odd -- although I hope for my own sake that trait never becomes a crime...). Neither of the girls not the good people of Fingerbone know quite what to make of her. She definitely has her own ideas about things -- she goes into deep, long silences, almost as if, for her, time doesn't exist. Sylvie begins to fill the house with odd collections of things -- empty tin cans with their labels removed, newspapers and magazines. Leaves begin to pile up in the corners of the room -- a visible reminder of her own ideas about 'the essence of housekeeping'.

Besides being an immensely entertaining story and a literary jewel, the book is a treasure trove of wisdom. It addresses the concept of human need and offers one of the most shining promises of fulfillment and hope that I have seen.

I knew when I picked up this book that it had been made into a film -- I put off watching it until I had read the novel, wanting to experience the richness of the written word first. The film is good, if low-key -- if you haven't seen it, definitely read the book first. This is one of the finest reading experiences I've had in recent years -- I can wholeheartedly recommend it, but PLEASE take your time and savor every word...!

My girlfriend loved Housekeeping (I never read it or even heard of it until recently) so I bought this to please her and because it looked interesting. I finished it two days ago, blown away, still reeling from the powerful intellect and moral arguments and passion Robinson brings to all her essays. She is at once fresh, direct, brilliant, dismissive of commonly accepted notions (and a helluva lot of other things), persuasive, thorough in her reasoning, a painter of dark times, and a light that shines through the dangerous triviality that pervades our global culture. I can't say enough about this book and, quite frankly, it's changing me even as I write this, as I know I need to react to it in an immediate way, but am as yet unsure how to do so. It's a highly "christian" book in many ways, at times heavily so, not in a doctrineaire way, but as the history of this country, the history of John Calvin (Jean Cauvin), the history of abolitionists and the opposition church of Nazi Germany, as moral/philosophical ethic. Her critique of "Darwinism" (and Nietzche and Freud) is both fascinating and chilling, and incredibly brilliant. (Her discussion of the Scopes trial is worth the price of the book alone.) Her dismissive put-downs of contemporary scholarship is witty, poignant and devastating, and when she gets too high on her high horse, she cuts herself down with a similarly poignant, self-depracating, remark. She often paints a bleak picture of today's world as it heads inevitably towards calamity and horrific climax, but the truth of her thought and writing creates just enough optimism so you don't end up feeling complete despair. I did find myself wishing she had written an essay or two of ideas on how to head out of our both individual and collective mess, if only because she comes across as so thoughtful, intelligent and possessive of grace that I would appreciate listening to them. I think, ultimately, any ideas about genuine alternative possibilities to the "global economic" cultural road we head down each and every day are tied up with her example - her approach to history, the directness, forcefulness and moral passion of her writing, and her belief in a moral ethic, Judeo-Christian or otherwise. An incredible book. Anyone who is remotely a serious thinker and wants some fresh ideas, buy this one. You may not be interested in all her topics, but you'll be in the grip of a terrific thinker, scholar and writer, and you will have discovered a real gem. I will reread this book and its various essays numerous times as I try to find a moral compass to guide myself in this world, and to give myself strength in facing our mass culture inanity as it spirals towards Lord knows where.

If you've been wondering what Sylvie has been up to these many years, wonder no more. The introduction alone is worth the price of the book--a humbling lesson in how much care is needed in using a language.

I found the book remarkable, and I am not now religiously observant in the least. Wonderful, clear prose. Sensible. Modulated. A word of caution:
Do NOT lend this book to anyone. You will never get it back.

This classic of the english literature, written by Kate Chopin, is a revolutionary novel for the time she had to live. It was bad seen and was forbiden for more than 50 years. The idea that a woman, a married woman, would laeve her husband and her children, to live with another man,wasnt allowed in her society. Im not saying that nowdays such a thing is allowed, but in those earlies days, this thing wasnt even thought, thats why this book can not have a happy end for Edna, because in no way her dream would have been come true. Personally Y think Robert loved Edna vey much, but he knew, he never could have been with the woman he loved. Her friend Madmoisselle Reisz, told her she needed to be strong to face her feelings and let Robert by side, because he finally would destroy her life. At the end that was what finally happened, Ednas complete life turned around Robert until that point, in the absence of her husband, she left home with the only purpuse of beeing alone until Roberts return. Y think that she was so in love, that she was forced to sink in the sea. Personally I found it an excellent book and it could bea very good advice for further generations.

Though at one time I, too, would have rated "The Awakening" one of the worst reads of a lifetime--for its predictability in the context of a woman oppressed by Victorian society, and the most undeveloped, unsympathetic heroine for whom I was unable to muster the slightest emotional investment--a nagging, relentless undercurrent of something I couldn't quite identify festered long inside me regarding this novel until the story, and author, were at last redeemed upon my third reading, in a literature course that finally ended this internal struggle.

Having much faith in Kate Chopin as a writer, I never felt 'the awakening' was about sex. This was too easy, even for a book set in Victorian Society. Further, it occurred to me that although women were limited beyond the domestic sphere in this era, suicide was not particular to the phenomenology of Victorian women (as it was, say, to Wall Street brokers at the onset of the Great Depression).

"The Awakening," in title and content, is irony. Edna Pontellier's awakening is about who she perceives herself to be, and who she actually is. She dreams of passion and romance and embarks on a summer affair, yet she married Leonce simply to spite her parents, who don't like him. She moves out of the family home to live on her own--with the permission, and resources, of Leonce--hardly independent. She claims to crave intimacy, yet she fails horribly at every intimate relationship in her life: she is detached with her children, indifferent to her husband, leery of her artist friend, and can hardly stand another minute at the bedside of her warm, maternal friend, Mrs. Ratignolle, to assist her in childbirth. (Ratignolle was my favorite character of all, read after read, simply because she was so content with herself.)

The Awakening? The surprise is on Edna, who is not the person she imagines herself to be. The irony? Edna Pontellier is never awakened to this, even at the bitter end. Feminists have adopted this book as their siren song...embarrassing at least! A feminist reading would, predictably, indict Victorian society as oppressive to women. Yawn...So that's new?!! Tell us something we don't know! I can tell you that concept wouldn't be enough to keep a book around for a hundred years.

But the concept that has sustained this novel over a century's time is its irony. And it is superbly subtle. I believe Chopin deliberately set up Victorian society as her backdrop to cleverly mask this irony...'the awakening' is not something good (a daring sexual awakening in a dark era for women): it is something horrible that evolves and is apparent to everyone except the person experiencing it. This reading makes Edna's character worth hating! Chopin herself hated Edna Pontellier and called her a liar through her imagined conversation with her artist friend at the end of the novel.

Chopin also cleverly tips the scales in Edna's favor in the first half of the novel, but a careful read reveals those scales weighed against her in the second half. I give the novel 5 stars because it took me three readings and help from a PhD lit professor to figure out this book. And I'm proud to say that I am, at last, awakened.

Can you imagine the impact this book must have had when it was first published in 1899? So scandalous! And it still has the power to make its readers eyes grow wide.

My only complaints are that the ending was unrealistic. (Of course, it fit the BOOK completely---it just wasn't practical.) I also think the portrayal of Edna as a nonchalant mother (as opposed to a nurturing mother) was unfair. Chopin wanted readers to view Edna as a victim, and when Edna turned around and neglected her own children...that didn't help our sympathy for her. ...Yet surely we readers realized this was a woman who was too oppressed and stifled to know what to do with herself.

Anyway, before I forget, a word of caution: HAVE A DICTIONARY NEARBY!! WHOA! Chopin was obviously VERY intelligent, along with being ahead of her time. Vocab. word after vocab. word, I tell ya.

Overall, the reader feels pity for practically every character. But it's not such a melancholy atmosphere that would make one want to stop reading it; it's merely proof that Chopin can weave a web of believable characters struggling with believable circumstances.

I would voice one more disappointment, though, if it wouldn't serve as a spoiler. ...Um, I think I was hoping that Edna would betray her husband a little more than she did...succumb to temptation a bit more...because I was rooting for her! I was sympathizing with her, and I thought she should get what she has longed for. But no such luck. Her conscience probably prevented something from going too far. Rats.

This is a sophisticated read laced with French phrases and lengthy paragraphs, but worth your while.