The Pull of the Stars (Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition)

by Emma Donoghue

Overview

This Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition includes a Q&A with author Emma Donoghue, a reading group guide for book clubs, and recommended reading.

In Dublin, 1918, a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu is a small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, in "Donoghue's best novel since Room" (Kirkus Reviews)

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders — Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police , and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316593137
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	07/21/2020
Edition description:	Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	2,434
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 5.70(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight years in Cambridge doing a PhD in eighteenth-century literature before moving to London, Ontario, where she lives with her partner and their two children. She also migrates between genres, writing literary history, biography, stage and radio plays as well as fairy tales and short stories. She is best known for her novels, which range from the historical (Slammerkin, Life Mask, Landing, The Sealed Letter) to the contemporary (Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes. For more information, visit www.emmadonoghue.com.

Hometown:

London, England and Ontario, Canada

Date of Birth:

October 24, 1969

Place of Birth:

Dublin, Ireland

Education:

B.A. in English and French, University College Dublin, 1990; Ph.D. in English, University of Cambridge, 1998

Website:

http://www.emmadonoghue.com

Editorial Reviews

"Donoghue offers vivid characters and a gripping portrait of a world beset by a pandemic and political uncertainty. A fascinating read in these difficult times."— Booklist (starred review)

Praise for Akin: A Novel

"Soul stirring."— O Magazine

"We are never too old, Donoghue reminds us, to emerge from our childish dusks. What begins as a larky story of unlikely male bonding turns into an off-center but far richer novel about the unheralded, imperfect heroism of two women — Michael's incarcerated mother and Noah's long deceased one — and the way we preserve the past and prepare for the future."— Megan O'Grady, The New York Times Book Review

"Continuously charming."— Ron Charles, Washington Post Book World

"In Donoghue's sure hands, both Noah and his snarky charge are immediately distinctive, their voices clear...It would be a stretch to say these two loners redeem each other, but cast together, they do at least learn to reach out. By their flight back to their new, shared home, they've touched the reader as well."— Boston Globe

"As always, Donoghue's quite poignant on the idea of home — as both a place and a person. Though Michael and Noah are alien to each other, Noah reflects, they were, 'in an odd way, akin.'"— Seattle Times

"Akin turns unabashedly sentimental, but only a stone wouldn't be moved by its final pages."— Heller McAlpin, Barnes and Noble Review

"AKIN's strength lies in Donoghue's richly drawn characters. Oh, and don't be surprised if you finish this book and immediately start researching flights to Nice."— Yahoo Lifestyle and PureWow

Praise for The Wonder

"Fascinating. . . . Like "The Turn of the Screw," the novel opens irresistibly, when a young woman with a troubled past gets an enigmatic posting in a remote place. . . . Heartbreaking and transcendent and almost religious in itself."
— Sarah Lyall, New York Times

"Exquisite . . . a tight, intense drama. . . . Anna may or may not be a genuine 'living marvel,' but The Wonder certainly is"
— Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post

"A fine, fact-based historical novel, an old-school page turner. . . . Donoghue has written, with crackling intensity, about [spirituality's] power to destroy."
— Stephen King, New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher