A Floating Life: A Novel [NOOK Book]

A Gem of imaginative writing

This well-crafted novel with its carefully wrought language is a gem of imaginative writing. I was carried along by the turns in the narrative from one adventure to the next. I found the characters of the wise old men in Pecheur and Tsukino-san wonderfully convincing sources of strength, meaning and finally new life itself. I loved the vivid section about the narrator giving birth and nurturance to his son. And the narrator’s ominous yet uplifting encounters with the bear family were a delight. I was truly sorry when I came to the end, wanting more!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A FLOATING LIFE takes the reader deep into the kaleidoscope of p

A FLOATING LIFE takes the reader deep into the kaleidoscope of psyche.
No matter what zany experience befalls the narrator, Crawford's voice is
hilarious. Fasten your seatbelts! This masterful first novel will
surprise and delight. A must-read for lovers of Murakami and Borges,
with magical realism and mysticism entwined.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Once I entered this world it enveloped me and I found myself on

Once I entered this world it enveloped me and I found myself on a
journey between life and death, spirit and matter. At the start I felt I
was in a Kafkaesque dream. There are threads that weave the reader
inside and out so masterfully that I believed I could open the novel
anywhere and find a thread that would lead me back to the beginning or
onward to the ending. It left me with clearer inner sightings. One truth
shown by the novel is that all that really matters is love, including
the love of deep friendship. Hilda

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

The author has a very fertile imagination, which comes through a

The author has a very fertile imagination, which comes through as the
protagonist moves from one dreamlike state to another, encountering some
unforgettable characters along the way. Move into this dream state at
the very beginning, and you'll be carried along on wave after wave of
unusual experiences.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Don¿t be surprised by the unusual format and striking juxtaposit

Don’t be surprised by the unusual format and striking juxtapositions of
images. Just let yourself go and be taken up with the dreamlike quality
of this engrossing fiction. It’s a rare insight into how one’s
unconscious weaves in and out of reality and dreams. Enjoy the ride!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Dreamy, wise, engaging, strange. A tale of middle-age muddle tol

Dreamy, wise, engaging, strange. A tale of middle-age muddle told with
insight, imagination, and subtle humor in a distinctive voice that’s
something like Kafka after an unusually good night’s sleep, Bulgakov if
he’d had late-capitalist worries, or Leonora Carrington dressed up as a
man. If your taste runs to enigmatic shop owners, shipwrecked kamikazes,
talking animals, and Las Vegas cyclopes (or you think it might), and you
like the idea of them mingling with resonating sense, around a core of
real human concerns, this is very likely a book for you. If no, it may
be even more so.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Very highly recommended

A truly fantastic novel that made my summer. It's the kind of book that stays with you. Images, sounds and whole scenes remain in my mind. Like a surreal journey, this book takes you to places that are magical but with a twist that keeps the reader engaged. My hat is off to Mr. Crawford who shows great sophistication, style and savvy in a book that I hope will be the first of more to come!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Readers eager to explore a world beyond the ordinary need look n

Readers eager to explore a world beyond the ordinary need look no further.
This really is a fantastic accomplishment.
If you loved the delightful creepiness of The Twilight Zone, the weirdness of Fringe and wish to expand your collection and enjoyment with something that manages to stay pretty strong throughout and different from the normal, run of the mill stories, then you will definitely want to add this to your collection.

A Floating Life is marvelous, in the fullest sense of that word.

A Floating Life is marvelous, in the fullest sense of that word. And in addition it is beautifully imagined and elegantly written. In the hands of Tad Crawford, It's genre, Magical Realism, allows us to visit impossible realms, both terrible and ecstatic, and to survive that journey both amused and deeply moved. A new voice, a wonderful debut.

An Instant Classic!!

Tad Crawford's "A Floating Life" ranks among the great, imaginative works of recent literature. Reading it is a transformative experience in and of itself, as the reader is taken on a wild and intimate journey inside the narrator's psyche. It's dream-like quality is brutally honest and hysterically funny all at once. Its a courageous novel, one that surprises with each turn of the page. I found it riveting from start to finish and could not put it down. Mr. Crawford has exploded on the scene with this expertly crafted, brilliantly written novel where each word, each passage reveals deeper meaning. To describe the details within could never do it justice -- its something that just has to be experienced to be fully understood. Read this book. You will be amazed as I was. You've never experience anything quite like it.

Best Novel I have Read This Summer

This was a surprise hit for me. I began reading this book and could not put it down. I was drawn into a world that was fantastic, magical, and truly bizarre. I am a floater myself in many ways, or so the book made me realize, because though I think myself consciously directed, I yearn for the kind of escapes this book led me on. If this is not the domain of great novels then what is? I am highly recommending this book because I was left wanting more, and I still have images and scenes swirling in my head.
May you have the same mellifluous experience I had.

One is submerged in an alchemical mist, adrift in the beauty of

One is submerged in an alchemical mist, adrift in the beauty of
language spare and well-crafted. In this mystic’s world, I walked in
crystal corridors that seemed an endless maze and yet, in the end,
brought me to the unfathomable wonder of life.