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Birdy [Paperback]

William Wharton
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Book Description

2 Aug 2012

An extraordinary story of war and friendship from one of America’s most revered authors of the 20th Century.

Two teenagers form an unlikely friendship in pre-War Philadelphia. Al is obsessed with lifting weights, looking good and chasing girls. Birdy is obsessed with flight.

Birdy’s passion becomes all-encompassing. Birdy wants to fly.

A few years later these young men find themselves emotionally and physically scarred by Word War Two. Al is called to an army psychiatric hospital to help the doctors there treat his friend, who he finds squatting on the floor of his cell and acting like a bird.

This haunting and brilliant novel has electrified readers the world over. It has truly become a modern classic.

In 1984, Birdy was turned into an award-winning movie directed by Alan Parker and starring Nicholas Cage and Matthew Modine.


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Birdy + Shrapnel
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Product details

  • Paperback: 300 pages
  • Publisher: The Friday Project (2 Aug 2012)
  • Language: Unknown
  • ISBN-10: 0007457987
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007457984
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 354,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

‘Wonderful’ DORIS LESSING

‘Will become a classic’ PATRICK WHITE

‘Most memorable… Wharton is exceptionally gifted’ JOHN FOWLES

‘It is as good as Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest… and perhaps it is better’ GUARDIAN

About the Author

William Wharton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1925. During the Second World War, Wharton served in the US army, until an injury led to his discharge. In 1978, Wharton’s first novel, ‘Birdy’, was published to critical acclaim. Before his death in 2008, Wharton penned 8 further novels, and 3 memoirs. The most recent memoir, ‘Shrapnel’, will be published for the first time in English in 2012.


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5.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting and moving 9 Mar 2013
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
For Birdy and his childhood best friend Al, the war is over (WWII). They're both invalids, and Al has been drafted in to try to connect with Birdy, who is in an almost catatonic state in an army psychiatric hospital, and apparently now believes he's a bird.

Al's role is to help bring him back to reality by reminding him of their childhood exploits. Wharton achieves this brilliantly, using Al's persuasion of Birdy and alternating that with Birdy's own internal dialogue, revealing 2 damaged young men facing some scary truths about the world and themselves.

Wharton's attention to detail about the pigeons and then the canaries that earned Birdy his nickname is just astonishing. The writing is never over-dramatic, but always sympathetic, and the tale is compelling. Highly recommended.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Overlooked classic 1 Mar 2013
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I thought this was going to be heavy going.

It isn't. William Wharton writes as he thinks, and he thinks with exceptional clarity. The book encompasses a great many things, from insanity to adolescence to bird rearing to war, and each subject carries an insider knowledge that is breathtaking. Birdy's understanding of canaries is obviously a fiction and yet Wharton writes so cleverly that you start to believe everything as fact. And this bleeds out into all the other facets of the book.

Brilliant.
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5.0 out of 5 stars A different approach 3 Oct 2012
By chatty
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Novels on the subject of war are so common it is often impossible to pick the wheat from the chaff. There is always love, death and injury but very rarely is there the emotional impact. Birdy is a novel about two very different boys who having grown up together as the best of friends breeding pigeons and running away to Atlanta City. They then realise, almost too late, that war has separated them turning them into people they don't really know. However, nothing is certain and can memories from the past drudge up old friendships?
This is a book which analyses the psychology of war, passion and emotional damage. With beautiful descriptions of the art of flying, memory and self analysis this is a must read, especially for those that love J D Salinger.
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