Beautiful Ruins Hardcover - 2012
by Jess Walter
The acclaimed, award-winning author of the national bestseller "The Financial Lives of the Poets" returns with his funniest and most romantic novel yet: the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 and is rekindled in Hollywood 50 years later.
From the rear cover
The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.
And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot--searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.
What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion--along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.
Details
- Title Beautiful Ruins
- Author Jess Walter
- Binding Hardcover
- Edition First Edition
- Pages 352
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Harper, New York
- Date 2012-06
- ISBN 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Weight 1.12 lbs (0.51 kg)
- Dimensions 9.34 x 6.43 x 1.17 in (23.72 x 16.33 x 2.97 cm)
-
Themes
- Chronological Period: 20th Century
- Library of Congress subjects Motion picture actors and actresses, Man-woman relationships
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 2011279056
- Dewey Decimal Code FIC
Media reviews
Citations
- Booklist, 05/15/2012, Page 15
- Booklist Editors Choice/Adult, 01/01/2013, Page 8
- BookPage, 06/01/2012, Page 0
- Entertainment Weekly, 06/15/2012, Page 86
- Kirkus Best Fiction, 11/15/2012, Page 41
- Kirkus Reviews, 06/01/2012, Page 0
- Library Journal, 04/01/2012, Page 75
- LJ Best Books of Year, 12/01/2012, Page 25
- New York Times Book Review, 07/15/2012, Page 26
- NY Times Notable Bks of Year, 12/02/2012, Page 24
- Publishers Weekly, 05/14/2012, Page 0
- Publishers Weekly Best Books, 11/05/2012, Page 28
- Shelf Awareness, 06/19/2012, Page 0
More Copies for Sale
Beautiful Ruins: A Novel
by Walter, Jess
- Used
- Acceptable
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Used - Acceptable
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Seller
-
Houston, Texas, United States
- Item Price
-
A$8.37FREE shipping to USA
Show Details
Beautiful Ruins : A Novel
by Walter, Jess
- Used
- Condition
- Used - Good
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Quantity Available
- 2
- Seller
-
Reno, Nevada, United States
- Item Price
-
A$10.66FREE shipping to USA
Show Details
Beautiful Ruins : A Novel
by Walter, Jess
- Used
- Condition
- Used - Good
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Seller
-
Reno, Nevada, United States
- Item Price
-
A$10.66FREE shipping to USA
Show Details
Beautiful Ruins
by Walter, Jess
- Used
- good
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Used - Good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Quantity Available
- 2
- Seller
-
Seattle, Washington, United States
- Item Price
-
A$10.81FREE shipping to USA
Show Details
Beautiful Ruins : A Novel
by Jess Walter
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Quantity Available
- 2
- Seller
-
Seattle, Washington, United States
- Item Price
-
A$10.81FREE shipping to USA
Show Details
Beautiful Ruins
by Walter, Jess
- Used
- good
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Used - Good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Quantity Available
- 2
- Seller
-
Seattle, Washington, United States
- Item Price
-
A$10.81FREE shipping to USA
Show Details
Beautiful Ruins
by Walter, Jess
- Used
- good
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Used - Good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Quantity Available
- 2
- Seller
-
Seattle, Washington, United States
- Item Price
-
A$10.81FREE shipping to USA
Show Details
Beautiful Ruins : A Novel
by Walter, Jess
- Used
- Condition
- Used - Very Good
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Quantity Available
- 3
- Seller
-
Reno, Nevada, United States
- Item Price
-
A$11.22FREE shipping to USA
Show Details
Beautiful Ruins : A Novel
by Walter, Jess
- Used
- Condition
- Used - Good
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Quantity Available
- 9
- Seller
-
Mishawaka, Indiana, United States
- Item Price
-
A$11.22FREE shipping to USA
Show Details
Beautiful Ruins : A Novel
by Walter, Jess
- Used
- Condition
- Used - Good
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780061928123 / 0061928127
- Quantity Available
- 5
- Seller
-
Mishawaka, Indiana, United States
- Item Price
-
A$11.22FREE shipping to USA