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Tim Winton

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Breath Kindle Edition

by Tim Winton (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER - Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2009

When paramedic Bruce Pike is called out to deal with another teenage adventure gone wrong, he knows better than his partner - better than the parents - what happened and how. Thirty years before, that dead boy could have been him.

'It's unlikely Winton has ever written as well as he writes in Breath... Its seeming simplicity is deceptive, for beneath its pared-back surfaces lies all the steel of a major novelist operating at full throttle in a territory he has spent 25 years making his own.'
James Bradley, THE AGE

'A novelist who, to a peerless degree, has learnt how to do it...Breath seems to cut through everything, and to speak with unusual honesty.'
Philip Hensher, SPECTATOR

'An absorbing, powerful and deeply beautiful novel, a meditation on surfing which becomes a rumination about the very stuff of existence.'
Helen Gordon, THE OBSERVER

'This brilliant book may well turn out to be the finest thing that Winton has done.'
Andrew Riemer, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

'Breath is about moving out of your depth, getting in over your head, having your soul damaged beyond repair ...But against all this pointless sorrow, there remains the evanescent beauty of the world, and Winton matches that with limitlessly beautiful prose.'
Carolyn See, WASHINGTON POST

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Print length

192 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Penguin eBooks
Publication date

14 September 2012
File size

1647 KB
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Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
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Product description

Review

"Darkly exhilarating." -- The New York Times Book Review

"This slender book packs an emotional wallop... Winton is well-known in Australia and should be here." -- Publishers Weekly

"Winton is pitch perfect in capturing (but not exploiting) adolescent angst, and he describes surfing and the sea so thrillingly that even non-swimmers will want to plunge right in." -- Library Journal

"The new novel from the twice "Booker" shortlisted author. Bruce Pike has always been forbidden to go down to the beach but when he meets Loonie, the local wild boy, he defies his parents and discovers the wild joys of surfing and an erotic current that he can't resist. An absorbing, powerful and deeply beautiful novel." -- The Observer

"Tender, incisive, sometimes brutal and always moving coming-of-age novel." -- The Seattle Times

"This aptly titled novel knocks the breath out of the listener as it recounts a youth's daredevil surfing exploits, evoking the fragile balance between life and death. Paramedic Bruce Pike looks back in this coming-of-age story of his thrill-seeking youth in 1970s Australia. He and his friend, Loonie, meet a charismatic surfing legend named Sando, who mentors them in the science and art of surfing, and drives them to more and more reckless behavior. Dan Wyllie delivers an easily understandable Australian accent and shifts subtly between tentative teen and jaded adult. Wyllie's delivery of Winton's vivid descriptions is mesmerizing, and he ably conveys the image of breath as a metaphor throughout the story. This compelling novel may entice the listener to seek out the well-known Australian author's many other works." -- AudioFile Magazine

"Tim Winton's newest novel offers an irresistible taste of oceanic communion." -- Los Angeles Times

"Winton's latest novel is both a hymn to the beauty of flying on water and a sober assessment of the costs of losing one's balance, in every sense of the word." -- The New Yorker

About the Author

Tim Winton has published twenty-six books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows,Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). He lives in Western Australia.

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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B009AO1Z10
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin eBooks (14 September 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1647 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 192 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 15,546 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 1,132 in Contemporary Fiction (Kindle Store)
- 7,443 in Genre Fiction (Books)
- 7,646 in Whispersync for Voice

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2,982

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Top reviews from Australia

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Denny

A writer who paints pictures with words

Reviewed in Australia on 11 February 2023

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You could open this book up at any page, and there will be some of the best prose I’ve read. Short succinct sentences through which you find a character, either their physicality or their soul.
Sometimes when it seems a little long winded, I remind myself that these are the musings of a man looking back to how he was moulded, by his own thoughts and actions, or by the urging of others.
The protagonist is a gentle lonely soul, searching for meaning or for himself. In many ways this is a coming of age story, something I’d an oxymoron, a painful, sad story but one full of wonder and awe.

Extraordinary and excellent.

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Davo

A great story teller!

Reviewed in Australia on 28 October 2020

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I did feel it was a little long winded, a little too much about feelings, padding the story out, but a great story all about people I'm glad I read it.

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Amazon Customer

I really enjoyed the first part of the story and then the ...

Reviewed in Australia on 4 February 2016

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I really enjoyed the first part of the story and then the life of the boys under their mentor. Towards the end (about 80% into the book) it became bizarre. I think Tim was thinking ahead to further books and dropping in hints as foreshadowing. The last 20% was not in the same class as the rest of the book.
Tim has a style that is easy to read and the characters become real very quickly. The lack of conversation marks was a bit disarming at first, but after a while I did not notice their absence.An interesting tale of life in WA and pitting oneself against nature.
I will read further books to get a better handle on the writer's mindset.

One person found this helpful

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Pink diamond

awesome read

Reviewed in Australia on 1 September 2022

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I really enjoyed this book .. recommend to anyone fantastic read.. now to watch the movie … recommended by my brother

Reviewed in Australia on 17 June 2018

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I’ve just read Breath after seeing the movie. I enjoyed both very much. Reading the book gave the movie more depth. Some of the scenes in both the book and movie are breathtaking - funny I often held my breath while reading.
The last part of the book filled me with a deep sadness.

One person found this helpful

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Susan Jane

A Beautiful, Moving Book

Reviewed in Australia on 10 September 2015

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Love Tim Winton's writing although I seldom love his characters. This book was no exception! Set in a small sleepy down in the Great Southern Region of Western Australia, Winton nails the atmosphere and characters so well. This is an epic coming of age saga which evokes everything about a small coastal town in Australia: the brisk sea air, the odd-balls wandering down the main street, aging hippies, the magpies calling in the early morning, the fishermen catching pink snapper on the riverside and landing salmon on Ocean Beach and of course, the surfers, always the surfers. A beautiful book. Looking forward to the movie.

2 people found this helpful

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Mark

A good read.

Reviewed in Australia on 29 December 2018

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about people, different, struggling in our individual ways, finding a path, making a mess, and coming out the other side.

2 people found this helpful

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Gillian

Loved and cherished it.

Reviewed in Australia on 9 August 2018

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A book that’s taken me probably 6 months to read but just pick it up late at night when I can’t sleep cos wife is roaring snoring and go to the same places the author goes in his head. Loved it.

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justme

Great book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 December 2023

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The aussie-isms caught me out a few times but its a great read.

Marco Pastore

Buon libro

Reviewed in Italy on 28 April 2021

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Acquistato per un regalo. E' stato molto gradito

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Adriana

Muito bom

Reviewed in Brazil on 22 August 2019

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Li em menos de 1 semana. Uma história cativante e que te faz sentir a emoção do personagem. Recomendo a leitura pra quem gosta de surfe e pra quem não conhece também. É uma história sobre se auto conhecer.

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Ava H.

Discovering Winton's Breath - an unsurpassable novel

Reviewed in Canada on 12 July 2017

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There are only a few novelists that compel you to read everything that they have written, and Mr. Winton is surely one of them. This disturbing but beautifully written novel is a coming of age story of a young Australian boy who is addicted to the adrenaline rush of surfing and who becomes enmeshed in a world of like minded risk junkies with disastrous and profound results. This novel in particular is tightly written, suspenseful, surprising and ultimately shocking but has a resolution that almost lets you breathe for its hero. Almost. The descriptions of ultimate surfing are unsurpassed (and I am a couch surfer). Superb in every respect.

2 people found this helpful

E. J. Goolian

I love this writer!

Reviewed in the United States on 28 August 2017

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I recently discovered this author, recommended by the writer Elin Hilderbrand in The New York Times. I am now snapping up anything by him I can get my hands on. I just finished my third title, “Breath,” which may be the best of the three so far (“Dirt Music,” “Eyrie,” both wonderful). It follows two boys in their early teens as they take up surfing and put themselves under the tutelage of an older, experienced surfer who, grudgingly at first, takes them on; soon they are under his spell. The risks they take on become increasingly dangerous as the book becomes less about surfing and more about everything else.

These are all gritty novels that resonate on a deep level, written by an absolutely gorgeous writer. Western Australia is a curious and wonderful world to slip into and the language quirks are delightful. These are not easy stories—bad things do happen—and they pack a punch. Winton’s characters learn expensive life lessons, lead hard-scrabble lives, lose loved ones, make bad decisions. I might even venture to say these books are not for the faint of heart. But if you want something that’s real and will move you deeply, if you like great writing, if you want a book you won’t forget five minutes after you close it, this is for you.

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