Setting Free the Bears

Irving John

ISBN 10: 0552992062 / ISBN 13: 9780552992060

Published by BLACK SWAN, 2001

About this Item

This book is in good condition with very minimal damage. Pages may have minimal notes or highlighting. Cover image on the book may vary from photo. Ships out quickly in a secure plastic mailer.

Seller Inventory # RDV.0552992062.G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Setting Free the Bears
• Publisher: BLACK SWAN
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0552992062
• ISBN 13: 9780552992060
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: good

About this title

Synopsis

'Truly remarkable. . . a complex and moving novel' Time
'A wonderfully fresh, wildly imaginative notion of a book' Kirkus
'Imagine a mixture of Till Eulenspiegel and Ken Kesey and you've got the range of the merry pranksters who hot rod through Mr. Irving's book' The New York Times
_______

'The brown bears paced, brushing their thick coats against the bars; their heads swayed low to the ground, in rhythm with some ritual of stealth they were born knowing and pointlessly never forgot'

It is 1967 and two Viennese university students decide to liberate the Vienna Zoo, as was done after World War II. The eccentric duo, Graff and Siggy, embark on an adventure-filled motorbike tour of Austria as they prepare for 'the great zoo bust.' But their grand scheme will have both comic and gruesome consequences, as they are soon to find out...
_______

What readers are saying:

'Great'
'Excellent'
'Irving's mastery of the written English language is a delight'
'One of the best writers in the world'
✰✰✰✰✰

About the Author

John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942, and he once admitted that he was a 'grim' child. Although he excelled in English at school and knew by the time he graduated that he wanted to write novels, it was not until he met a young Southern novelist named John Yount, at the University of New Hampshire, that he received encouragement. 'It was so simple,' he remembers. 'Yount was the first person to point out that anything I did except writing was going to be vaguely unsatisfying.'

The World According to Garp, which won the National Book Award in 1980, was John Irving's fourth novel and his first international bestseller; it also became a George Roy Hill film. Tony Richardson wrote and directed the adaptation for the screen of The Hotel New Hampshire (1984). Irving's novels are now translated into thirty-five foreign languages, and he has had nine international bestsellers. Worldwide, the Irving novel most often called "an American classic" is A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), the portrayal of an enduring friendship at that time when the Vietnam War had its most divisive effect on the United States.

In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. (He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, until he was thirty-four, and coached the sport until he was forty-seven). In 2000, Irving won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules - a Lasse Hallström film with seven Academy Award nominations. Tod Williams wrote and directed The Door in the Floor, the 2004 film adapted from Mr. Irving's ninth novel, A Widow for One Year. Avenue of Mysteries is John Irving's fourteenth novel.

John Irving has three children and lives in Vermont and Toronto.