Wrack: A Novel [Paperback]

James Bradley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2000

A user-friendly guide illustrated with 240 two-color photographs and illustrations, Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit sets forth the tenets of this gentle yet rigorous exercise as no other book has. Integrating the teachings of every tradition, internationally renowned yoga instructor Donna Farhi reveals how yoga enhances the connections between the mind, body, and spirit. She outlines the seven simple movement principles that underlie all human motion and provides exercises to help readers understand how they can achieve all yoga postures. She also discusses the ten ethical precepts that are the foundation of all yoga teachings and explains how to incorporate them into a spiritually and emotionally rewarding inner practice. At the heart of Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit are more than seventy-five yoga asanas or postures. Each is one pictured and described in detail, and they are arranged into related groups-including standing postures, sitting postures, arm balances, and breathing practices-for easy reference. A selection of yoga practices of varying lengths and levels of difficulty provides challenges and inspiration for beginner, inter- mediate, and advanced students. A huge resurgence of interest in yoga is sweeping the country. With its broad scope and holistic approach, Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit is the ideal book for today's mainstream audience.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Shipwrecks and lost loves, the Mercator projection and sand dunes, 20th-century passions and the age of exploration: this ambitious first novel by James Bradley crosses continents and centuries to explore the notion that Australia may have been discovered by the Portuguese. David is an Australian archaeologist combing sand dunes that he thinks may be hiding an ancient Portuguese ship. What he finds instead is a human body from the 1940s. An old hermit named Kurt Seligmann advances mysteriously to the fore of the narrative, voicing memories that may or may not touch on the history of this corpse. More crucially to the obsessed David, Kurt seems to possess some knowledge of the fabled sand-sunk ship. As the old man slips away into illness, David's former lover, Dr. Claire Sen, joins him at his bedside vigil. David and Claire find their own doomed story subtly twinned in Kurt's tale of obsession and love in wartime Australia.

Genuinely gripping, ingeniously plotted, and always convincingly researched, Bradley's novel has plenty of propulsive intelligence to keep the reader hooked. Bradley's first book was a volume of award-winning poetry, and he brings a poet's aptitude for language and repeated images to Wrack. Sometimes, however, this preoccupation hamstrings an otherwise compelling adventure tale. Imagery of shards crops up incessantly, which is perhaps a bit literal-minded for a novel with an archaeologist protagonist. "A memory, or perhaps less than a memory, a shard, a fragment" is a typical (fragmented) sentence--not very helpful prose and not even very nice poetry. If a book is going to invoke Michael Ondaatje as heavily as this one does, it needs to deliver more compelling writing. Still, fans of The English Patient--and Dava Sobel's Longitude, for that matter--should find much to admire in Bradley's cleverly looped and configured tale of ships at sea and lovers in sand. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

A seamless fusion of dramatic wartime love story, historical fiction and archeological murder mystery, Australian writer Bradley's accomplished debut novel has a dreamlike compulsion. Archeologist David Norfolk, obsessively searching for a 16th-century Portuguese ship wrecked on the coast of New South Wales, digs up the body of a man shot to death 50 years earlier. An Ondaatjean hermit, cantankerous, cancer-ridden and living in a nearby shack, holds the clue both to the victim's identity and the ship's whereabouts. As David and his ex-girlfriend Dr. Claire Sen tend to the dying recluse, Kurt Seligmann, and resume a romance of their own, they listen to their patient reminisce about the years 1937-1942, when he was an archeologist from Sidney, living in occupied Singapore and embroiled in an affair with the wife of his mentor and best friend, Fraser McDonald. (The corpse on the beach, it turns out, could be Fraser.) Seligmann, too, once searched for the wreck that Norfolk seeksAa ship that, if found, could challenge Tasman and Cook's claim to have discovered the continent and would explain the presence of the land mass on Renaissance maps. Bradley adroitly interpolates details of the fierce rivalry between the 16th-century Spanish and Portuguese empires, and fascinating lore on mapmaking. His prose, which alternates between clipped, declarative statements and lyrical, metaphor-filled cadenzas, may make too sweet a meal for some readers. The novel's concluding wordsA"the past is... a shifting sea with nothing at its center, except illusions, and loss"Aexemplifies the kind of generalization that weakens this otherwise suspenseful story. Yet Bradley's skill in interweaving the novel's strands to create a graceful meditation on death, ambition and obsession creates a memorable novel. (May) FYI: Wrack won two Australian literary awards and was shortlisted for the 1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize for best first book.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; 1st edition (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805064478
• ISBN-13: 978-0805064476
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,489,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointment., August 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Wrack: A Novel (Hardcover)

The characters seemed shallow, without depth given to some of their pasts. The plot droned on and on...with me pursuing only to find the ending, which was disappointing. The lack of quotation punctuation was annoying. It felt like a cheap show with gratuitous sex thrown in for appeal. If you like historic mystery try: City of Light instead.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wrack - It's not as simple as you think, February 28, 2003

By 

Amelia (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wrack: A Novel (Paperback)

I read 'Wrack' for my final year at High School in Australia and upon first reading it found it to be uninteresting and dreaded spending a year studing 'Wrack'. After re-reading it and discussing it with my teacher and classmates I discoved the many layers of this very deep and suprising novel. Bradley explores so many issues in this book and examines the characters relationships on many levels that I finished my school days feeling that I had read a great novel by a very talented writer.

So give 'Wrack' a chance - it's a great book!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A writer of immense promise, September 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Wrack: A Novel (Hardcover)

This story of intersecting love triangles is a thoroughly absorbing but ultimately unsatisfying read. The opening pages promise a depth of emotion that is never fully realized as the book prgresses. Still the skillfull writing and a powerful grasp of history show that Bradley is capable of great things. I expect to see truly extraordinary work as his writing matures.