Amazon.com: A Boy of Good Breeding : A Novel: Miriam Toews: Books

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9 Reviews

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.4 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusual characters make this an enjoying read, July 27, 2000

By

Andrew Laurence (Alameda, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Boy of Good Breeding (Paperback)

I first heard of Miriam Toews (pronounced Taves) when an excerpt from "A Boy of Good Breeding" was read on CBC Radio One while I was traveling in Canada recently. I was captivated and wound up purchasing the book. The story centers on the zany characters who live in fictional Algren, Manitoba, which at 1,500 people is in the running for Canada's smallest town, and its eccentric mayor is intent on keeping it that way until Canada Day (July 1), for reasons which I won't go into to avoid spoiling your fun. Toews has a gift for making ordinary people and their failings (teenage motherhood, poverty, chronic depression) interesting and sympathetic, without drowning in sentimentality. I was so hooked by this book that I purchased and read "Summer of my Amazing Luck," which won a Manitoba award in 1996. It too was amusing, warm and thoroughly enjoyable

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Writer of Good Breeding, February 26, 2001

By

Levi Miller (Scottdale, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Boy of Good Breeding (Paperback)

I was recently in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and someone mentioned Miriam Toews as a good writer from the area. I really enjoyed the characters in this book: the eccentric mayor Hosea Funk, the young mother Knute Corea-McCloud and the wonderful mutt named Bill Quinn. The characters make bad, petty, heroic and hilarious decisions, but the writer is ultimately a friendly narrator who gets us to care and want to keep reading right to the end.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Writer of Good Breeding, February 26, 2001

By

Levi Miller (Scottdale, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Boy of Good Breeding (Paperback)

I was recently in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and someone mentioned Miriam Toews as a good writer from the area. I really enjoyed the characters in this book: the eccentric mayor Hosea Funk, the young mother Knute Corea-McCloud and the wonderful mutt named Bill Quinn. The characters make bad, petty, heroic and hilarious decisions, but the writer is ultimately a friendly narrator who gets us to care and want to keep reading right to the end.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, big-hearted, small town story
After the success of Canadian author Toews' award winning "A Complicated Kindness," some of her earlier novels have been released in the U.S. Read more

Published on September 26, 2006 by Lynn Harnett

4.0 out of 5 stars Early Book by the Fannie Flagg of Canada
I guess people have different reactions to Miriam Toews, but all of us pat ourselves on the back for picking up her fiction and reading it through despite the cultural uncertainty... Read more

Published on September 12, 2006 by Kevin Killian

3.0 out of 5 stars Empire Falls "light"
Hosea Funk is an eccentric middle aged mayor of Algren, the sometimes "smallest town in Canada," which he strives to keep that way to increase his chances of winning a contest... Read more

Published on August 28, 2006 by Julee Rudolf

5.0 out of 5 stars Winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year award
Winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year award and ably narrated by Ruth McIntosh, A Boy Of Good Breeding by Miriam Toews is an abridged audiobook set in a small Canadian... Read more

Published on August 6, 2006 by Midwest Book Review

3.0 out of 5 stars The problem with CanLit...
The problem with CanLit is its overly self-conscious need to be "not American", with "uniquely" "Canadian" "settings" and "characters". Read more

Published on July 31, 2006 by The Bulletin Broad

5.0 out of 5 stars Toews beautifully captures the simple joys of life
I recently read Miriam Toews' "Swing Low", which is a memoir of her father. I picked up Boy of Good Breeding because I loved her writing style, which is casual, simple,... Read more

Published on November 6, 2000 by kokapelli

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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
Algren was Canada's smallest town. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
old feed mill, smallest town

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Summer Feelin, Bill Quinn, Prime Minister, Combine Jo, Hosea Funk, Leander Hamm, Johnny Dranger, Wagon Wheel, Uncle Jack, Veronica Epp, John Baert, Caroline Russo, Mayor Funk, Nurse Barnes, Emmylou Harris, Euphemia Funk, First Street, Charlie Orson Memorial Hospital, Iris Cherniski, Jesus Christ, Lawrence Hamm, Lorna Garden, Candace Wheeler, Lorna Funk

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