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Jamrach's Menagerie: A Novel Kindle Edition

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Carol Birch (Author)
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Carol Birch (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 75 customer reviews
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Length: 306 pages Word Wise: Enabled Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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Product Details

  • File Size: 976 KB
  • Print Length: 306 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage (June 14, 2011)
  • Publication Date: June 14, 2011
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B004CFAWLG
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray:
  • Word Wise: Enabled
  • Lending: Not Enabled
  • Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #474,247 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsPoetic writing, powerful tale
By Brad Teare VINE VOICE on April 29, 2011
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
This book has one of the most fascinating first chapters of any book I have read lately. The narrative begins approximately in the 1850s (after discovery of kerosene in 1853 which triggered the demise of whale hunting). The best part of the book is the simple magic of the writing. As with most books enjoyment depends on not knowing too much about how the story unfolds. Suffice it to say the plot involves a young boy who survives an encounter with a tiger in a London slum. The boy later travels the world hunting whales and his ship is commissioned to capture the first Comodo dragon. That will give you the basic story arc without ruining the subtle but unique twists and turns that make this book so readable and enjoyable.

The writing is simple but appropriate for the times and characters, a rare fusion of poetic writing and compelling narrative. I found many of the scenes emotionally powerful and the book reaches a satisfying yet complex conclusion. Late in the book the author does deal with an unsettling theme but I felt it was handled well, being neither prudish nor graphic, but advanced the story in a compelling fashion.

There are sailors that occasionally use the f-word which jarred me out of the historic reverie the author so skillfully wove. I suppose sailors really did talk like that but I prefer less reality since it is absent in the writing of the era. This is a minor complaint. Most won't be bothered by it. I suppose I lead a rather sheltered life but mention this for other readers such as myself.
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5.0 out of 5 starsGripping, moving and haunting
By Sid Nuncius TOP 500 REVIEWER on July 2, 2011
Format: Kindle Edition
I thought this was an excellent book. It is gripping, moving and haunting and although it deals with a great deal of suffering and sheer horror, it is often very beautiful.

From the title and some reviews which describe it as "rollicking" and a "romp," I expected a jolly story about a young man becoming involved with an exotic menagerie in Victorian London. It turned out to be very different - a complex, literary novel of the sea as our narrator sets off on a journey on one of the last of the whaling ships under sail to find and capture an exotic, possibly mythical, creature. I found it utterly enthralling, with much to say about the nature of friendship, of growing up, people's behaviour in desperate times, guilt and redemption and much more. It never preaches or philosophises, but presents us with a vivid picture of very real-seeming people, often in extremities of endurance and suffering, and asks us to consider them compassionately. There are incidents and characters here which will remain with me for a long time.

The book also captures wonderfully the atmosphere of Victorian London and of life on a sailing ship and whaler. Melville, Patrick O'Brian and others have set a phenomenally high standard for novels of the sea, whaling and the age of sail but I think Carol Birch, while wholly different from either, matches them for believability and her ability to transport the reader into her world. I thought that the description of the pursuit, killing and processing of a whale was simply brilliant, for example, even though it was familiar from other novels. There were several other passages which were just as good.

The prose was a real pleasure to read.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsThrilling adventure and difficult moral choices
By TChris TOP 500 REVIEWER on June 15, 2011
Format: Hardcover
Jamrach's Menagerie begins in a seedy nineteenth century London that is reminiscent of Dickens. Charles Jamrach is a dealer in wild animals. When one of his tigers escapes, ten-year-old Jaffy Brown pats it on its nose and winds up in the tiger's mouth. Fortunately for Jaffy, the tiger has recently eaten and is sated. Freed from the tiger's grasp, the uninjured Jaffy is deemed a natural with animals and is offered a job with Jamrach, where he befriends the slightly older Tim and his sister Ishbel. When Jaffy is sixteen, he and Tim join Jamrach's best supplier, Dan Rymer, who has been commissioned to capture a dragon-like creature called an Ora. To that end they sail away on a whaler and Jaffy's adventure begins.

A fellow with second sight warns Jaffy and the rest of the whaler's crew that they'll bring on bad luck if they capture the dragon and take it on board the ship. The crew should have listened. Time itself changes with the Ora on board; they enter "dragon time." Their thoughts become muddled; Jaffy says "It was like an earthquake in the landscape in my head, and I no longer knew what I could count on." In light of the warning, it's obvious that disaster will strike; it's just a question of when it will happen and how bad it will be. It's bad.

Carol Birch's vivid writing brings this thrilling story to life. Reading the novel was like watching a movie in high definition -- better than that, really, given the clarity that language provides. Birch's style alternates between graceful and gritty, as the scene demands. Part seafaring adventure, part survival story, part tale of the supernatural, with elements of a morality play and psychological study, Jamrach's Menagerie delivers an exhilarating plot and convincing characters.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Enjoyable. Surprising plot development.

Published 9 days ago by Kristina L Moore
5.0 out of 5 starsA great and grand adventure that is written in an elegant

A great and grand adventure that is written in an elegant, yet very readable style. You will never forget this story and the imagery presented within. It is that good.

Published 4 months ago by Tim Dossey
5.0 out of 5 starscharacters have a great deal of depth

Very well written, characters have a great deal of depth, everything you want in a good read.

Published 4 months ago by Sandra Alexander
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent 'page-turner' of a read

Very well written and an unusual plot. Excellent 'page-turner' of a read. Some gruesome scenes so it is not for the squeamish.

Published 6 months ago by Jim Grier
4.0 out of 5 starsAdventure

Descriptive in a compelling, immersive way, I loved the first half. Second half can drag as it becomes more conceptual, but brought home well.

Published 7 months ago by Stu
5.0 out of 5 starsExotic creatures and an enthralling tale

Jamrach’s Menagerie is set in 1830s London, by the dockyards, where sailors come and go. The narrator is Jaffy Brown, now in his fifties, reflecting on the voyage that made him a... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Martina A. Nicolls
4.0 out of 5 starscomplex charcters keep you guessing

Definitely keeps you wondering what's coming next

Published 11 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsEnded too soon.

It felt like a cross between Great Expectations and Moby Dick. And while the thought of that may strike fear and loathing into the heart of high score readers, it has much to... Read more

Published 12 months ago by James L. Webster
5.0 out of 5 starsi don' give many five stars

A tale of survival, superbly written, the struggle to live: to be born into a life that gives few choices; growing up in London's slums; to sea to escape, discovering that... Read more

Published 16 months ago by CTK
5.0 out of 5 starsLoved every minute of this novel and I'll search out the other novels...

This novel has one of the best openings I've read: 'I was born twice. First in a wooden room that jutted out over the black water of the Thames, and then eight years later in the... Read more

Published 19 months ago by Alumine Andrew

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