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| Breath | 
 enlarge | Author: Tim Winton
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £8.99
You Save: £6.00 (40%)
New (21) Collectible (2) from £5.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 683
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 215
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0330455710
EAN: 9780330455718
ASIN: 0330455710
Publication Date: May 2, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 10 to 13 days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Waste of Breath November 25, 2008
After getting this through the Vine programme, I was looking forward to reading it, especially after seeing so many good reviews for it on Amazon. However I was really disappointed in it. The writing is elegant and beautiful and the cover is attractive...but sadly the story just failed to grip me in the way I thought it would and I was left lamenting the lost opportunity. I think I will read it again at some point and see if it improves on closer reading, but all in all it wasn't really for me.
Stunningly evocative November 23, 2008
This is a well-written novel where the reader is transported to Western Australia and virtually hears the sea and feels the spray. The story tells of a 50-year old man who reflects upon on his life from adolescence and his personal journey, a road as turbulent as any ocean, confronting fear and risk, through pain and sadness. For those who love the challenge of the waves, this is a brilliant book, and surfers will find themselves pulled back to the surf by Winton's vivid descriptions of the changeable sea. For those who haven't experienced the thrill of riding the waves, this is still a very enjoyable read though undeniably surf-centric.
 A beautiful book. November 20, 2008
This reminds me of being young again ad at uni...not that I was ever was into surfing! Winton is a beautfil writer and I guess this is as good a place as any to start delving into his work.
Elegiac coming of age tale November 19, 2008
Breath is a wonderful, beautifully written and bittersweet story of two adolescent Australian boys befriended by a surfing god and his wounded wife, a former extreme skier. Pike, the young hero and authorial voice, tells the story of their surfing triumphs, fear, sexual conquests, adulation and friendships honed and scarred by the need of these four likeable but extreme characters to push themselves to and beyond the edge.
It is rich and deep and moving, but also wonderfully readable, with language and descriptions to relish and a story that races along, sometimes faster than you want it to. Unmissable!
All you ever wanted to know about surfing . . . November 17, 2008
I was enthralled by this book even though I had no knowledge of, or interest in surfing before I started reading it. Bruce Pike - known as Pikelet - and his friend Loonie are both drawn to the sea for different reasons. Throughout their teenage years they spend as much time as possible at the beach perfecting their skills. But the first chapter of the book in which the 50 year old Bruce, now a paramedic, attends an apparent case of teenage suicide which he knows to be nothing of the sort, sets the scene for his description of his childhood and teenage years. Whilst there are many descriptions of the surf and the experience of surfing, the book is more complex than that. It is primarily about the element of risk in people's lives and how it affects them and the lengths some people will go to, to experience fear. The writing is unobtrusive and you are hardly aware of it whilst you're reading. The adult characters are seen through Bruce's eyes as he discovers more about them and about himself and his ultimately problematic relationship with Loonie is brilliantly portrayed. I did enjoy it - almost against my better judgement. It is extremely well written and accessible without being over literary.
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