Reading by Lightning: The Reader's Guide Edition

By Joan Thomas

Book Overview

Winner, Commonwealth Writers Prize, Canada and the Caribbean
Winner, Amazon.ca First Novel Award
Winner, On the Same Page, Manitoba Reads
Finalist, Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book
Finalist, Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction
Finalist, McNally Robinson Book of the Year
Longlisted, IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

For Lily Piper, life on the prairie is spare, austere, and tucked in. She is restless -- not the daughter she feels her mother wants. When puberty hits, an abrupt shift in fate has Lily on her way to England to care for her aging grandmother. There, she experiences life in all its ambiguity, until she is called home to face a future she thought she had escaped. Thomas's prose is intimate, elegant and devastatingly funny; her engrossing story of Lily Piper tells us something about how we make sense of the future when the future is something we can hardly imagine.

Reading by Lightning, Joan Thomas's long-awaited first novel, took readers by storm. A year after its publication, it had won numerous awards, found a large readership, and been selected by popular vote for On the Same Page, Manitoba's one book reading experience. Goose Lane is pleased to reissue Reading by Lightning in this reader's guide edition, complete with an afterword, an interview with the author, extended biographical notes, and more.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0864926642
• ISBN13: 9780864926647
• Release Date: October 2011
• Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Clever Yet Honest

I never write reviews, but I had to comment after reading the last review. I thought this book was amazing! I was engaged from the get-go: I found the author's writing style so engrossing I couldn't shake the character's voices even when I wasn't reading the book. I couldn't put it down! I was instantly pulled into the story, and the relationships within a small harsh community. Lily Piper's voice is so compelling, and the amazing details the author inserts create such an evocative backdrop for the story. Every moment in this book lends itself to the story as a whole, not an instant or observation is wasted, and yet the narrative isn't forced. It's impossible not to sympathize with the spirited Lily Piper, who is constantly yearning to find her place within her family and larger community. To call this a coming of age tale does not do justice to the narrative of this novel, which explores the concept of self-definition: how do any of us, individually or collectively, define our place in the world? The audience does not need to have had difficult parental relationships, have experienced harsh religion or the realities of war to be pulled into the emotional landscape that the author creates with such nuance for these events. The characters are so layered and believable; the author does a remarkable job of encouraging affection for often flawed individuals - just as you would feel for your own family! Ultimately this book (and that last scene!) left me with an intense optimism - we make ourselves and our homes. Lily Piper is a protagonist full of strength and curiosity, and her observations of the world around her are constantly clever and heartbreaking, all at once. This is most definitely an adult book, but one I would recommend for anyone who once knew the yearning of the teenage experience. Reading by Lightning is simply a fantastic novel.