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The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by 
Muriel Barbery
Barbara Rosenblat
Cassandra Morris
  
Publisher: HighBridge Company
Subject(s):  Fiction
Literature
Language(s):  English
Awards:  Audio Award Nominee
Audio Publishers Association
Listen Up Award
Publishers Weekly

Format Information

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Available copies:   0 (1 patron(s) on waiting list)
Library copies:   2
File size:   137560 KB
ISBN:   9781598879261
Release date:   Jun 18, 2009

Digital Rights Information

OverDrive WMA Audiobook
Burn to CD: Permitted
 
Transfer to device: Permitted
   Transfer to Apple® device: Permitted
 
Public performance: Not permitted
File-sharing: Not permitted
Peer-to-peer usage: Not permitted
 
All copies of this title, including those transferred to portable devices and other media, must be deleted/destroyed at the end of the lending period.
 

Description

An enchanting New York Times and international bestseller and award-winner about life, art, literature, philosophy, culture, class, privilege, and power, seen through the eyes of a 54-year old French concierge and a precocious but troubled 12-year-old girl.

Renée Michel is the 54-year-old concierge of a luxury Paris apartment building. Her exterior ("short, ugly, and plump") and demeanor ("poor, discreet, and insignificant") belie her keen, questing mind and profound erudition. Paloma Josse is a 12-year-old genius who behaves as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter. She plans to kill herself on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday.

Both Renée and Paloma hide their true talents and finest qualities from the bourgeois families around them, until a wealthy Japanese gentleman named Ozu moves into building. Only he sees through them, perceiving the secret that haunts Renée, winning Paloma's trust, and helping the two discover their kindred souls. Moving, funny, tender, and triumphant, Barbery's novel exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

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Reviews

AudioFile Magazine...
Barbara Rosenblat is the perfect choice to portray this novel's principal character, Renee, the concierge of a Paris apartment building who looks down her nose at the elites she must kowtow to while surreptitiously studying art, philosophy, and music. Avoiding any tone of pretentiousness, Rosenblat breathes a sense of vulnerability and empathy into this character, which comes through vividly with her impeccable timing. Paloma is a 12-year-old living on the fifth floor who is also appalled by what she sees around her and decides to kill herself on her thirteenth birthday. Cassandra Morris so deftly captures this character that you never for a moment doubt that she really is 12. Further, her light touch keeps Paloma's world-weariness from becoming maudlin. D.G. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
 
The Washington Post...
"Gently satirical, exceptionally winning and inevitably bittersweet."
 

About the Author

MURIEL BARBERY is a French novelist and professor of philosophy. Her second novel L'Élégance du hérisson (translated into English as The Elegance of the Hedgehog) topped the French best-seller lists for 30 consecutive weeks and is an international bestseller.