-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
The Man Who Rained
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.35
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Man Who Rained for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.35, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
When Elsa's father is killed in a tornado, all she wants is to escape - from New York, her job, her boyfriend - to somewhere new, anonymous, set apart. For some years she has been haunted by a sight once seen from an aeroplane: a tiny, isolated settlement called Thunderstown. Thunderstown has received many a pilgrim, and young Elsa becomes its latest - drawn to this weather-ravaged backwater, this place rendered otherworldly by the superstitions of its denizens. In Thunderstown, they say, the weather can come to life and when Elsa meets Finn Munro, an outcast living in the mountains above the town, she wonders whether she has witnessed just that. For Finn has an incredible secret: he has a thunderstorm inside of him. Not everyone in town wants happiness for Elsa and Finn. As events turn against them, can they weather the tempest - can they survive at all? The Man Who Rained is a work of lyrical, mercurial magic and imagination, a modern-day fable about the elements of love.
About the Author
Ali Shaw grew up in Dorset and graduated from Lancaster University with a degree in English Literature. He has since worked as a bookseller and at Oxford's Bodleian Library. His first novel, The Girl with Glass Feet, was a huge commercial and critical success, won the Desmond Elliot Prize and was shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award. He is currently at work on his third novel.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When I saw that this book was released on New Year's Day I had to treat myself. I bought and really enjoyed Ali Shaw's debut novel The Girl with Glass Feet and was hoping that this one would not disappoint. I'm glad to say in my opinion that it didn't disappoint at all.
Ali Shaw has a distinctive style of writing that draws you into the story. He has the ability to write fairy tales for Adults, that are full of magic and are a joy to read. At the heart of this book is a story about relationships and maybe a touch of romance.
Elsa has always had a keen interest in the weather from an early age. It's all down to her father's interest in storms and this is his downfall in the end. It's following her father's death that Elsa re-evaluates her own relationship and her life in New York. Elsa is drawn to Thunderstown which she'd seen some years ago from a plane window. All is not as it seems in Thunderstown and the reader is soon caught up in the happenings and how day to day life differs from the 'norm'. As we are introduced to some of the inhabitants we realise that like in all good fairy tales, we have some goodies and some baddies to tell you more about these inhabitants would spoil the story as I'd prefer you all to draw your own conclusions as to which side everyone is on.
Elsa happens upon Finn Munro one day and soon realises that he is not quite what one usually expects in a man but it's her love of clouds and all things weather related that attracts her to him. This attraction doesn't please everyone and as things spiral out of control, events happen and nothing will be as it was before!
What happens and whether the story has a happy ending you'll have to read for yourself. If like me you enjoy modern well written magical fairy tales aimed at Adults then this book is for you.
Ali Shaw has a distinctive style of writing that draws you into the story. He has the ability to write fairy tales for Adults, that are full of magic and are a joy to read. At the heart of this book is a story about relationships and maybe a touch of romance.
Elsa has always had a keen interest in the weather from an early age. It's all down to her father's interest in storms and this is his downfall in the end. It's following her father's death that Elsa re-evaluates her own relationship and her life in New York. Elsa is drawn to Thunderstown which she'd seen some years ago from a plane window. All is not as it seems in Thunderstown and the reader is soon caught up in the happenings and how day to day life differs from the 'norm'. As we are introduced to some of the inhabitants we realise that like in all good fairy tales, we have some goodies and some baddies to tell you more about these inhabitants would spoil the story as I'd prefer you all to draw your own conclusions as to which side everyone is on.
Elsa happens upon Finn Munro one day and soon realises that he is not quite what one usually expects in a man but it's her love of clouds and all things weather related that attracts her to him. This attraction doesn't please everyone and as things spiral out of control, events happen and nothing will be as it was before!
What happens and whether the story has a happy ending you'll have to read for yourself. If like me you enjoy modern well written magical fairy tales aimed at Adults then this book is for you.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I read this first book, The Girl with glass feet and was smitten. He made me believe it all could be real. That in some parts of the world there was still magic that was not truly magic, it was just life. It's not like paranormal books where you just read it but do not believe. Here, here it is different. Perhaps men can rain, and perhaps rain can come to life.
His prose is lyrical and it sucks you in, it holds on to you and it also made me feel scared. This is a town filled with superstitious people who kill that of rain and thunder. While on the mountain there lives a strange man called Finn, who is our man who rained. I feared for him.
The story is about Elsa who comes to Thundertown to start a new life. She is nice and curious and meets Finn. Who is mysterious and sweet. He shows her a world that seems to exist only in these mountains. It's a book filled with magical realism and feelings of longing, love but also hate of the unknown. And here it truly shows. That which you do not know you fear and think is dangerous. Only some give it a chance and find that we are all alike in the end.
The book is great, the writing, the story, the people in it and the world he creates. It's a place were sunbeams come to life.
Conclusion:
It's a book I recommend because it is so real and still so magical. I can't wait for his next book and see what he comes up with then. It was simply enchanting, heartbreaking and lovely.
Cover:
His prose is lyrical and it sucks you in, it holds on to you and it also made me feel scared. This is a town filled with superstitious people who kill that of rain and thunder. While on the mountain there lives a strange man called Finn, who is our man who rained. I feared for him.
The story is about Elsa who comes to Thundertown to start a new life. She is nice and curious and meets Finn. Who is mysterious and sweet. He shows her a world that seems to exist only in these mountains. It's a book filled with magical realism and feelings of longing, love but also hate of the unknown. And here it truly shows. That which you do not know you fear and think is dangerous. Only some give it a chance and find that we are all alike in the end.
The book is great, the writing, the story, the people in it and the world he creates. It's a place were sunbeams come to life.
Conclusion:
It's a book I recommend because it is so real and still so magical. I can't wait for his next book and see what he comes up with then. It was simply enchanting, heartbreaking and lovely.
Cover:
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you have read The Girl with Glass Feet this is in a similar vein, so if you enjoyed the first you will probably like this. This time he is playing with the idea of personification of the weather. I enjoyed reading it, but I did feel it was a little like watching a film or tv show in the sense of having stock characters - the town bully and his sidekick, the old helpful saintly nun, the man with a cross to bear x3 (Daniel, Kenneth and Finn), the girl from the broken home and so on.
The other surprising thing to me about Ali Shaw having got round to reading his potted bio, is that he is from England ( and a man - when I read his first book I assumed Ali was a woman). His writing in both books seemed to me to have an American feel.
Elsa is a slightly unsatisfactory heroine and probably his least sympathetic character other than Sidney Moses and Abe Cosser. I found Daniel to be the most interesting in the end, probably very clever of Ali to get me to that from D's initial unfavourable appearance.
The descriptive writing is strong and the sense of place with the mountains brooding over the town is well expressed. I wouldn't want to go there though!
The other surprising thing to me about Ali Shaw having got round to reading his potted bio, is that he is from England ( and a man - when I read his first book I assumed Ali was a woman). His writing in both books seemed to me to have an American feel.
Elsa is a slightly unsatisfactory heroine and probably his least sympathetic character other than Sidney Moses and Abe Cosser. I found Daniel to be the most interesting in the end, probably very clever of Ali to get me to that from D's initial unfavourable appearance.
The descriptive writing is strong and the sense of place with the mountains brooding over the town is well expressed. I wouldn't want to go there though!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
good, but not good enough
After "..glass feet" I had high expectations which weren't met. Some parts seemed too similar and others a little empty. Read more
Published 9 days ago by JONATHAN EDWARD KAY
Enchanting, mesmerising fairy tale for grownups
As others, I, too, had read and loved "The Girl with Glass Feet", and was eager to read Ali Shaw's new offering. I wasn't disappointed. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Gail HL
A Grown up Fairy Story
Ali Shaws second book is as fantastic as his first. The Man Who Rained is a wonderful story. It is a love story and a bit of fantasy. Read more
Published 1 month ago by bright pink pig
beautiful tale
`The man who rained' like Ali Shaw's first novel is very complex and works on many levels: It is both a tender love story and a story about redemption. Read more
Published 2 months ago by sarah J
The man who rained
I read this book after reading The Girl with the Glass Feet, which I througherly enjoyed, it was magical, interesting and well written. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Susan Ison
Moping, wallowing, magic, and cold, clammy, grey skin
Ali Shaw's first novel, The Girl with Glass Feet, mixed magical, fairy-tale-esque materials with a surreal island and a story about melancholy, obsession, love, emotionally stunted... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Federhirn
another bit of magic
Having fallen in love with The Girl With Glass Feet, and told everyone about it, I was thrilled to find The Man Who Rained. Read more
Published 3 months ago by traveller
Raining in my heart?
When Ali Shaw's first magical novel, The Girl with Glass Feet was published in 2009, I was drawn to this adult fairy-tale like a Greek sailor to the sirens, nothing could have... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Annabel Gaskell
Worth the Wait
After reading Ali Shaw's debut The Girl With Glass Feet shortly after it's publication I was hooked on his prose style and could not wait to get my hands on his next book. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Magic Jem
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
