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    Dear Thief
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    Dear Thief
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    Dear Thief
    Audiobook8 hours

    Dear Thief

    Written by Samantha Harvey

    Narrated by Anna Bentinck

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    In the middle of the night, a woman wraps herself in a blanket and starts writing. In answer to a question you asked a long time ago, she writes, and so begins a letter that both women have preferred to forget. She writes night after night - a letter of friendship, by turns a belated outlet of rage and forgiveness, the letter dissects what is left of a friendship caught between the forces of hatred and love.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateJan 1, 2015
    ISBN9781471282201
    Unavailable
    Dear Thief
    Author

    Samantha Harvey

    Samantha Harvey has published two novels, The Wilderness and All Is Song. She has been short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Guardian First Book Award, and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. She has also won the AMI Literature Award and the Betty Trask Prize. One of The Culture Show's 12 Best New British Novelists, she has contributed to Granta (print and online), has held a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony, and is a member of the Academy for the Folio Prize. She lives in Bath, England, and teaches creative writing in the master's program at Bath Spa University.

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    Reviews for Dear Thief

    3.5/5

    40 ratings8 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey; (2 1/2*)no review; just my thoughts & comments:I gave this book 2 1/2 stars for the writing, which I thought lovely.But here again, I have chosen a book (3 in a row) to read that is not plot driven but instead a letter to an old friend. I engaged with the beginning of the book but lost any bond between myself and the narrative about a third of the way through. From that point on I simply felt as if I was flailing in the River Thames where our protagonist found the beautiful bones.Perhaps I will revisit these books again one day. My head is just not in the right place for this type of book at this time.
    • 4/5
      As this book was sitting for years on the TBR, I forgot its themes or plot, so I kept it mysterious and delved into it. First, the cover seems misleading and I'm not sure how it fits? I want to keep it mysterious for other readers, so I won't be saying much. I will say though, that this sort of topic might be something that other writers can't pull off in my opinion... for this reader the plot would be bland and stale. BUT. Harvey does wonderful things on a sentence level, and sometimes it's the sentence style that can really carry a book for me, no matter the topic. And this is one of those, with its lovely appreciation of moments, small details and sentences. The book is like one of my favorite subtitled black and white movies that lingers on the little details. Am I being vague intentionally? Yes, as I would like this book to remain a mystery until others read it... though this is a good one to read if you want lighter problems in these dark times... If you like this book try:The Dictionary of Animal Languages - Heidi SopinkaHer Here - Amanda DennisLuster - Raven LeilaniSay Say Say - Lila SavageThe Rise & Fall of Great Powers - Tom RachmanI realize some don't like comparing books to other books, but I like to place them on a spiderweb map, or a shelf in my mind. I think the books can only compliment each other!
    • 4/5
      Beautiful, thoughtful, dark & sharp, this letter to a best friend, Nina (aka Butterfly) written by the unnamed narrator will absorb you, then stay with you!
    • 5/5
      Unique, beautifully written epistolary story. I could barely catch my breath. If you are a fan of Marilynne Robinson, this is your next read. Extraordinary.
    • 2/5
      Because of the way the novel is structured (as a letter to another character), the very fine writing only made me frustrated with the narrator. “You are a fabulous writer who exhibits a great deal of self-awareness,” I wanted to say, “so maybe get up and do something with your life instead of spending several months reliving the past?” (True enough, the protagonist says, “On the whole I do not think of you anymore,” but since a two-hundred page letter follows that declaration, it is difficult to believe.) It is perhaps a tribute to Harvey’s skill as a writer that the book evoked such strong feelings of exasperation in me; there were moment when I wanted to reach into the pages and shake some sense into the protagonist. And yet the book left me frustrated: is this the best use of Harvey’s talent? All those beautiful sentences in service of this story?
    • 5/5
      Lovely writing.
    • 3/5
      A long drawn out book that just seems to go nowhere fast.
    • 3/5
      I started reading Dear Thief: A Novel, by Samantha Harvey, because I too had lost touch with a friend many years ago, only to find out recently what had happened to her. I thought the theme would help me explore the meaning of that youthful friendship and the feelings dredged up by news that we would reconnect only in memory. The novel takes the form of a long letter written to an absent friend--a letter which reflects on the narrator's own life path, her marriage and son, and the betrayal that unfolds when the friend--"Butterfly"--comes to visit. Harvey's writing is often visionary, leading us to lonely woods and the rooms of the dying. I remember especially two scenes by rivers. One scene that takes place at night and involves the discovery of long-buried animal bones at the same moment as the unveiling of love. And one, framed by a tremendous thunderstorm, that reveals the discovery of a freshwater pearl at the same moment when that love may be lost. Throughout the narrative, memories and perceptions prove to be treacherous and changeable, like rivers. And feelings prove to be dense with both hope and betrayal. The reader rightly wonders what is truth and what is fiction, and whether the two can indeed be disentangled.