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Tinkers [Paperback]

Paul Harding
3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

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Book Description

21 Feb 2009
Pulitzer Prize Winner
"New York Times" Bestseller
"There are few perfect debut American novels. . . . To this list ought to be added Paul Harding's devastating first book, "Tinkers." . . . Harding has written a masterpiece." --National Public Radio
"In Paul Harding's stunning first novel, we find what readers, writers and reviewers live for." --"San Francisco Chronicle"
""Tinkers" is truly remarkable." --MARILYNNE ROBINSON, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Home, Gilead, " and "Housekeeping"
An old man lies dying. Propped up in his living room and surrounded by his children and grandchildren, George Washington Crosby drifts in and out of consciousness, back to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in Maine. As the clock repairer's time winds down, his memories intertwine with those of his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler and his grandfather, a Methodist preacher beset by madness. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, "Tinkers" is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, illness, faith, and the fierce beauty of nature.
Paul Harding is the author of two novels: the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Tinkers" and "Enon" (forthcoming in September 2013). He graduated from the University of Massachusetts and was a drummer for the band Cold Water Flat before earning his MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has taught writing at Harvard and the University of Iowa. A Guggenheim Fellow, Harding now lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two sons.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 191 pages
  • Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press (21 Feb 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 193413712X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1934137123
  • Product Dimensions: 12.7 x 1.3 x 17.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 772,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the PEN / Robert W. Bingham Prize
"New York Times" Bestseller
An American Library Association Notable Book, American Booksellers Association Indie Choice Honor Award recipient, International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award longlist selection, "Los Angeles Times" Art Seidenbaum First Fiction Award Finalist, and Center For Fiction Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize Finalist
Named one of the best books of the year by the "New Yorker, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, Irish Times, Granta, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, " Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, and National Public Radio
PRAISE FOR "Tinkers"
"A powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend their imprisoning lives and offer new ways of perceiving the world and mortality." --Pulitzer Prize citation
"An exquisite novel, at once fresh and hauntingly familiar, simple and profound, told with a voice so keen and beautiful as to leave the reader in a state of excitement produced only by literature, and the best literature at that." --HANNAH TINTI, OSCAR HIJUELOS, and CRAIG NOVA, PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize judges
"There are few perfect debut American novels. . . . To this list ought to be added Paul Harding's devastating first book, "Tinkers." . . . Harding has written a masterpiece." --JOHN FREEMAN, National Public Radio
"A complex reflection on memory, consciousness, and the meaning of life." --DIANE REHM, "Diane Rehm Show" "Readers' Review" Book Club
"A novel that you'll want to savor. . . . I found reading it to be an incredibly moving experience. . . . This book begs to be read aloud." --NANCY PEARL, KUOW.org
"Alive with gorgeous sentences." --LISA SHEA, "Elle" magazine
"[An] astonishing novel." --SUSAN SALTER REYNOLDS, "Los Angeles Times"
"In Paul Harding's stunning first novel, we find what readers, writers and reviewerso

Book Description

WINNER OF THE 2010 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 40 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars What do I know?... 5 Jan 2011
By Adam S
Format:Paperback
Before I begin this review, I'd like to acknowledge that I am almost certainly wrong. A book that has won so many plaudits, including the Pulitzer Prize, must be a great book. Readers more intelligent than me will probably consider me a philistine or a fool, most likely both. However, my mixed reaction to reading Tinkers is at odds with the universal praise that has been heaped on this short novel.

Let's start with the overwhelming positive - there are many parts of the book for which the prose is beautiful, really beautiful, with a texture that few writers can match. From the lightness of touch in Howard's daily appreciation of nature to the visceral description of the epileptic fit on Christmas day; for these passages alone it is worth reading the book.

My main gripe with this book is that, in places, it feels incredibly `loose'. For every beautiful passage there is another which only confuses. In these it feels as if the book has been written with the primary aim of being poetic, rather than communicating a message to the reader. Whilst not in itself the worst of literary crimes, for a book to be truly great it should do both, preferably achieving the latter with skilful use of the former. Too often it feels like a collection of well written exercises, without sufficient glue to hold them together as a single novel. At its worst it felt unstructured and, well, a bit messy. Perhaps I'm a bit dim, but most of the themes didn't work for me, and I can't help feel that a couple of steps away from poetry and towards fiction would make the book more complete without diminishing any of the beauty.

The book's eulogisers have a number of defences from which they can counter my concerns; it is a book about a hallucinating dying man; poetic licence; that the lack of exactitude is a metaphor for death itself; etc etc. However, all of these fail to pass muster. Similarly poetic books manage to feel tighter, with more direct themes, more meaning and a more complete finished article than this (`The Quickening Maze' by Adam Foulds and `The Sea' by John Banville are two that come to mind).

In conclusion, the line between genius and the emperor's new clothes is a fine one, but the ability to only write beautiful prose does not necessarily mean the book is a masterpiece.
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29 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
To pass the time waiting at yet another airport gate, I took the book TINKERS by Paul Harding with me. His debut novel, it was published in January 2009 and has 192 pages, a small book indeed, but a forceful, spellbinding and impressive one, a book leading to contemplation and soul-searching. The story tells about a tinker, Howard, a man mending broken pots and pans, a man standing for a vanished lifestyle, when time appeared to run at a slower pace and yet the days were full.
Weaving back and forth from the past to the present, it is also the story about another man, the late tinker's son George, who is slowly dying, in the house he built and amidst his family and all his lovingly repaired antique clocks, his entire life achievements if you will. The book deals with the relationship between a father and a son, and although Harding writes in great prose about the subject of the last days of life and impending death, it is truly a comforting book, somehow giving the reader solace by knowing what a rich and fulfilled life the main characters enjoyed. A moving and spiritual story.
13 April 2010. With his book TINKERS Paul Harding won the Pulitzer Price for Fiction today.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars My favourite book of recent years 26 Mar 2012
By BrynG
Format:Paperback
For me, the way a story is written is more important than the main storyline - in much the same way as Van Gogh's paintings of (just) sunflowers can hold the attention. I also love stories that are about what is going on inside a 'normal' person rather than their immediate actions.
I have read this book a couple of times (it is less than 200 pages) and I certainly can't say I understand it all, but it is a book to read slowly and savour. I shall certainly be reading it again (and I hardly ever repeat read a book, which is probably a shame and costly!).
There are beautiful descriptions of sky reflecting on the surface of a pond, and many others. I found all the characters had very real emotional lives, particularly George's mother who slaved out of duty rather than love. The descriptions of declining health are also very moving, though not depressing.
I think this book is well worth the effort, and is my favourite of at least the last 5 years.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but surprised that it won a Pulitzer
Tinkers is a flowing, imaginative book which engages the reader. It is written in a forthright way with a logical and legible plot. Read more
Published 1 month ago by sparky72
1.0 out of 5 stars 1/10
I found this book confusing, dull and boring. If I want a book of obscure poetry then I will go out and buy one,
this time I thought I was buying a novel. Read more
Published 6 months ago by MissAnnThrop
5.0 out of 5 stars A small wonder
This book is a small marvel - a impressionistic trinket of a book, a gloriously written piece of art. Read more
Published 8 months ago by RachelWalker
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
What a total let down at the end, more mind-boggling nonsense from Pulitzer. Yet another Audrey Niffenegger's - Time Travellers Wife rubbish!
Published 10 months ago by Simon
3.0 out of 5 stars Oh dear, another lemon
Tinkers is at once a promising first novel and simultaneously a disjointed and unfulfilling read.

Old man dying in bed, very little humour, I feel it's all been done... Read more
Published 16 months ago by a nice guy who likes reading
2.0 out of 5 stars Another Prize-Winner Than Did Nothng For Me
Ranganathan's third law of librarianship coined the phrase "every book its reader," which is something I had to keep reminding myself as I read this slender Pulitzer-winning novel. Read more
Published 21 months ago by A. Ross
3.0 out of 5 stars Rythmic style
The lyrical style of this book is excellent and as an experiment in the beauty and power of words it works. Read more
Published 22 months ago by D. J. Andrews
3.0 out of 5 stars Stylish but laboured metaphors and fails to come together
Telling the story of an old man's dying memories including the hard life of his own father, a tinker in New England, "Tinkers" is never going to be a barrel of laughs. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Ripple
3.0 out of 5 stars tinkers
I enjoyed this book but it is definately not a laugh a minute. The plot is a little confusing in places so choose a time when you can concentrate. Read more
Published 24 months ago by sarah adams
5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Debut
Given that Tinkers by Paul Harding runs only for 191 pages, it is a hugely ambitious novel and a tour de force that Harding broadly succeeds in what appears to be his aim. Read more
Published on 11 April 2011 by Herman Norford
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