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The Hummingbird

‘Magnificent’ (Guardian)

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About this listen

 'MAGNIFICENT' GUARDIAN
'A TOWERING ACHIEVEMENT' FINANCIAL TIMES
'INVENTIVE, BOLD, UNEXPECTED' THE SUNDAY TIMES

'Everything that makes the novel worthwhile and engaging is here'
Guardian

'Not since William Boyd's Any Human Heart has a novel captured a single life with such invention and tenderness'
Financial Times

'There is a pleasing sense of having grappled with the real stuff of life: loss, grief, love, desire, pain, uncertainty, confusion, joy, despair - all while having fun'
The Sunday Times

'Masterly'
Ian McEwan

'A real masterpiece'
Leïla Slimani

'A remarkable accomplishment, a true gift to the world'
Michael Cunningham

'Ardent, gripping, and inventive to the core'
Jhumpa Lahiri

Marco Carrera is 'the hummingbird,' a man with the almost supernatural ability to stay still as the world around him continues to change.
As he navigates the challenges of life - confronting the death of his sister and the absence of his brother; taking care of his parents; raising his granddaughter; coming to terms with his love for the enigmatic Luisa - Marco Carrera comes to represent the quiet heroism that pervades so much of our everyday existence.
A surprising and deeply moving reinvention of the family saga, this is a thrilling novel about the need to look to the future with hope and live with intensity to the very end. Family Life Fiction Future Studies Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Social Sciences Women's Fiction

Critic reviews

A masterpiece of love and grief ... Everything that makes the novel worthwhile and engaging is here: warmth, wit, intelligence, love, death, high seriousness, low comedy, philosophy, subtle personal relationships and the complex interior life of human beings ... magnificent - moving, replete, beautiful ... what makes the book special is that The Hummingbird is such an intelligent meditation on life, family, the human heart and the "dictatorship of pain" that comes with grief (Edward Docx)
A masterpiece of articulation ... a towering achievement ... Not since William Boyd's Any Human Heart has a novel captured the feast and famine nature of a single life with such invention and tenderness. Veronesi explores, with great humour, how the passage of time both expands and expunges the impact of events. And, he suggests, after the pounding of years it is only an individual's character that determines whether or not the edifice will hold (Christian House)
Instantly immersive, playfully inventive, effortlessly wise... a family saga that pays homage to the quiet heroism required by day-to-day existence (Hephzibah Anderson)
A big name in European literature ... Veronesi originally trained as an architect and, rather marvellously, it shows: the structure is inventive, bold, unexpected - slightly bonkers but elegant, and cohesive ... conveys life's messy unpredictability: joy and desperation, simple pleasures, moments of transcendence, much reeling and confusion ... There is a pleasing sense of having grappled with the real stuff of life: loss, grief, love, desire, pain, uncertainty, confusion, joy, despair - all while having fun (Lucy Atkins)
A tender, beguilingly epic novel... The complex, subtle design of the novel, with a patchwork of key episodes moving back and forth through time, and its textual variety - partly made up of letters, emails, transcripts of phone calls - disguise its saga-like scale, its epic proportions catching you off guard. It's almost only once you emerge from its acutely painful ending that you realise how much of life you have witnessed - the vastness, as well as the richness, of the story.
Veronesi's novel has been hotly anticipated by English readers. The bird of the title is Marco Carrera, blessed with the gift of being able to stay still while the world around him turns to chaos. Life-affirming
An inventive, a beautiful, complex book.
The Hummingbird is a masterly novel, a brilliantly conceived mosaic of love and tragedy. Veronesi creates a thought-rich and ultimately comic meditation on human error and lost chances. It's a cabinet of curiosities and delights, packed with small wonders, strange and sudden turns, insights of great poise and unusual cultural reference points. The Hummingbird in an object lesson in authorial control. Veronesi truly knows and loves all matters of the heart.
All stars
Most relevant
Average story, ruined by the narrator! Sounded bored throughout and didn't bother with punctuation or emphasis. I feel I would have enjoyed the story more if the narrator sounded like he cared.

Average

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I kept losing concentration and drifting off. some parts are beautiful but lacked interest for me.

not for me

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I found this to be a truly unique book in that it is a story about nothing. Take any of our lives, the trials and tribulations we live through and describe it through beautiful prose, considered observation and snippets of correspondence and suddenly we are all the hero of our own epic. To see how anyone can be the protagonist in their own experience, to be painted a hero just for keeping on keeping on is a quiet epiphany and ludicrously moving.
The true genius here is to have created the extraordinarily mundane and everyday life purely through fiction and to then make it beautiful.

Not for people who love thrillers or drama

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An unusual and beautiful story, translated with authenticity & wonderful to listen to.

Sandro Varonesi should be applauded for this sensitive & magical book.

Excellent.

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I enjoyed the story, but sometimes it's difficult to know who is speaking because the narrator doesn't change his voice.

Good story

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