Harvard Square Book Circle October 27, 2008

The Harvard Square Book Circle, our in-store, open-to-the-public reading group, will discuss Amy Bloom's exuberantly praised Away, a novel called "accessible to the point of pure enthrallment without compromising its eloquence or thematic strength" and "gloriously transporting" by the New York Times, for our October get-together.

Panoramic in scope, Away is the epic and intimate story of young Lillian Leyb who, when her family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, comes to America alone. When word comes that her daughter, Sophie, might still be alive, however, Lillian embarks on an odyssey that takes her from the world of the Yiddish theater on New York’s Lower East Side, to Seattle’s Jazz District, and up to Alaska, along the fabled Telegraph Trail toward Siberia.

“So vivid and engaging, so delicious in tone, that a reader experiences an immediate thrill, the all-too-rare one that signals: I am in excellent hands here… The language that Bloom employs to tell Lillian’s story is immediate, colorful, and unafraid to be plain…It’s not easy to be lyrical, funny, and brilliant all at once, and Bloom is.” –Boston Globe

“Away is a modest name for a book as gloriously transporting as Amy Bloom’s new novel. Alive with incident and unforgettable characters, it sparkles and illuminates as brilliantly as it entertains… Away is a literary triumph, a book-club must, and a popular novel destined for wide readership. It is accessible to the point of pure enthrallment without compromising its eloquence or thematic strength. Yet it is also a classic page-turner, one that delivers a relentlessly good read.” –The New York Times

Official Website: http://harvard.com/events/press_release.php?id=2148