Title: The Signature of All
Things
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Review: This book is quite a departure from Eat, Pray, Love. I had expected something else and so it took me a bit of time to get into this book, at first I was confused if she was just relating a story before the book really began…but that was the story and the book. When I accepted that this was a historical novel about a man and then his family and finally his daughter I started to enjoy the book.
I took my time reading
this book and that is one of the reasons the review is so late compared to the
published date…I had it well before the publish date- but life happened and I
wanted to savor this book like a fine wine.
I read a few pages everyday and with over 500 pages to read that took a
bit of time- time I enjoyed along the way.
I would find myself thinking about the characters and what would happen
next and then read on. The story was not
fast moving, the chapters did not end on cliff hangers so I felt no need to
rush along my journey, and this book is truly an amazing journey. Travels around the globe in the 1800’s took month’s
maybe years and this book traveled the globe too far off places where the
characters had grand adventures. Some
more grand then others and some just grand enough for a fond memory to form and
grow into more.
I love reading about
history and this book is a treat for the reader, one that is worth all the
pages to get to the end of the story and the end of a remarkable journey-
life. I loved the last chapter and
reread parts to try and remember what touched me the first time I finished the
book since I turned the last page with tears in my eyes- and yet it was not a
sad or depressing ending at all – it was a treat- one well worth the months it
took me to read and enjoy. Some books
are worth slowly digesting and thinking about.
Publisher: Published October 1st 2013 by Viking Adult
ISBN: 9780670024858
Copyright: 2013
Pages: 512
Pages: 512
Quick Review: 5 Stars out of 5
Why I Read It: Loved Eat, Pray, Love.
Where I Obtained the Book: Sent by the publisher for review.
Why I Read It: Loved Eat, Pray, Love.
Where I Obtained the Book: Sent by the publisher for review.
Synopsis
A glorious,
sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the # 1
New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed.
In The Signature of All
Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice
into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the
extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a
poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine
trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800,
Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his
mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma's
research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love
with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and
who draws her in the exact opposite direction—into the realm of the spiritual,
the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a
utopian artist—but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to
understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life.
Exquisitely researched
and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the
globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond.
Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters:
missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses,
and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma
Whittaker, who—born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the
Industrial Revolution—bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human
history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and
class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing
spirit of that singular time, Gilbert's wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is
certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers.
Her memoir, Eat, Pray,
Love, spent 57 weeks in the #1 spot on the New York Times paperback bestseller
list. It has shipped over 6 million copies in the US and has been published in
over thirty languages. A film adaptation of the book was released by Columbia
Pictures with an all star cast: Julia Roberts as Gilbert, Javier Bardem as
Felipe, James Franco as David, Billy Crudup as her ex-husband and Richard
Jenkins as Richard from Texas.
Her latest novel, The Signature
of All Things, will be available on October 1, 2013. The credit for her profile
picture belongs to Jennifer Schatten.
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