Unaccustomed Earth
by: Jhumpa Lahiri
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Product Description:
From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.
In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories—a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate—we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.
Unaccustomed Earth is rich with Jhumpa Lahiri’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom, and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is a masterful, dazzling work of a writer at the peak of her powers.
From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.
In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories—a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate—we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.
Unaccustomed Earth is rich with Jhumpa Lahiri’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom, and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is a masterful, dazzling work of a writer at the peak of her powers.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- Unaccustomed Earth
I could not put this book down - a great read! I look forward to reading more of Lahiri's books.
Rating: - SHE HAS NO PEER
I'll read anyhing she writes -- and more than once.If she brought out a line of greeting cards -- I'd buy them all and keep them for myself.
Rating: - Unaccustomed to such good reading
Every story in Unaccustomed Earth was a pleasure to read.Because of Lahiri's impecible use of language, it was a seamless transition from the place I was to being an intimate, on scene observer of the story.I was there.I loved it.
Rating: 
- Good dramatization
The recorded book proved a good dramatization of the novel.A woman and a man shared the reading. Choudhury assumed the female narrators and Naidu the men's.Their light accents authenticated the Indian-American heritage of the storytellers.Other language from India, Italy, and elsewhere they rendered well.A few paragraphs made me stop the recording and reread what preceded. Either my mind had wandered or the reader rushed over the words.I listened with a copy of Unaccustomed Earth before ... Read More
Rating: - Brilliant, psychological and haunting!!
Jhumpa Lahiri, winner of the Pulitzer Prize with her book The Interpreter of Maladies, continues to have one of modern fiction's most powerful voices.
The eight stories in her present book do not disappoint at all. They are wonderfully structured and are filled with acute psychological observations, eloquent writing and detailed descriptions. The main themes are about family secrets and relations. In one of them, there is the story of a widower who has a mistress and who prefers to keep it ... Read More
- Unaccustomed EarthI could not put this book down - a great read! I look forward to reading more of Lahiri's books.
- SHE HAS NO PEERI'll read anyhing she writes -- and more than once.If she brought out a line of greeting cards -- I'd buy them all and keep them for myself.
- Unaccustomed to such good readingEvery story in Unaccustomed Earth was a pleasure to read.Because of Lahiri's impecible use of language, it was a seamless transition from the place I was to being an intimate, on scene observer of the story.I was there.I loved it.
- Good dramatizationThe recorded book proved a good dramatization of the novel.A woman and a man shared the reading. Choudhury assumed the female narrators and Naidu the men's.Their light accents authenticated the Indian-American heritage of the storytellers.Other language from India, Italy, and elsewhere they rendered well.A few paragraphs made me stop the recording and reread what preceded. Either my mind had wandered or the reader rushed over the words.I listened with a copy of Unaccustomed Earth before ... Read More
- Brilliant, psychological and haunting!!Jhumpa Lahiri, winner of the Pulitzer Prize with her book The Interpreter of Maladies, continues to have one of modern fiction's most powerful voices.
The eight stories in her present book do not disappoint at all. They are wonderfully structured and are filled with acute psychological observations, eloquent writing and detailed descriptions. The main themes are about family secrets and relations. In one of them, there is the story of a widower who has a mistress and who prefers to keep it ... Read More
