Breath, Tim Winton
Breath, Tim Winton
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Breath
A Novel

Author: Tim Winton

Narrator: Troy Planet

Unabridged: 5 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/19/2018


Synopsis

Now a major motion picture, starring Simon Baker, Elizabeth Debicki, and Richard Roxburgh.

Breath, by renowned Australian author Tim Winton, is a story of risk, of learning one's limits by challenging death.

On the wild, lonely coast of Western Australia, two thrill-seeking teenage boys fall under the spell of a veteran big-wave surfer named Sando. Their mentor urges them into a regiment of danger and challenge, and the boys test themselves and each other on storm swells and over shark-haunted reefs. The boys give no thought to what they could lose, or to the demons that drive their mentor on into ever-greater danger. Venturing beyond all caution--in sports, relationships, and sex--each character approaches a point from which none of them will return undamaged.

About Tim Winton

Tim Winton is widely considered one of the greatest living Australian writers. He has published numerous books, and his work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian/Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music, and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). He lives in Western Australia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Rowan on April 21, 2023

I watched Simon Baker’s film adaptation of Breath years ago. Loved it. At the time, I didn’t know it was based on a novel. When I discovered it was, I knew I had to read it. Breath, winner of the prestigious Miles Franklin, is my first Tim Winton read. I finally understand why this author is regarde......more

Goodreads review by Suz on March 12, 2019

I have to be honest in full disclosure to state outright that my vain celebrity interest in a certain Aussie actor happened me upon this book. And I’m so glad I did. It looks like I have a lot of great reading ahead of me, as this is my first Tim Winton novel. I think I need to hang my head low on a......more

Goodreads review by Kylie on July 08, 2019

A poignant coming of age tale. Beautifully written, Tim Winton sets the bar high for other authors.......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on August 13, 2024

I chose Breath because I needed to read Tim Winton after gr-friend, Justin’s, reviews. The opening moved like a freight train in the first person present tense —my favorite for its immediacy when done right. Winton did it right, but after that one chapter the rest was told in past tense, as the prot......more

Goodreads review by Debra on November 13, 2017

3.5 stars Set in Western Australia, Breath is about a man, Bruce who is a paramedic who is looking back on his life - specifically when he was a teenager and he and his friend, Loonie used to dare each other to do dangerous things. First their stunts take place in a river near where they live then th......more


Quotes

“Majestic . . . charged with physical danger, physical courage, and Winton's brand of rugged introspection.” —The New York Review of Books

“Plunge into this novel and you, too, will be pulled under.” —The Miami Herald

“Stunning in the depth of its audacity...Limitlessly beautiful prose.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Darkly exhilarating...A tautly gorgeous meditation on the inescapable human addiction to 'the monotony of drawing breath,' whether you want to or not.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Both a hymn to the beauty of flying on water and a sober assessment of the costs of losing one's balance, in every sense of the word.” —The New Yorker

“A tender, incisive, sometimes brutal, and always moving coming-of-age novel...The prose is always astonishing, the descriptions of sea and weather especially vivid....The book seems as simple, and as vital, as the act of breathing itself.” —The Seattle Times

Breath is a coming-of-age novel written with Tim Winton's customary tenderness and vivid sense of place and psychological truth. He manages to portray brilliantly made characters against a mythic landscape, thus creating a narrative that is gripping and breath-taking both in its vast scope and in its use of emotional detail. This is his most forceful and perfect novel to date.” —Colm Toibin, author of The Master

“The book's main characters jump off the page....And, as in previous Winton novels, the prose is always astonishing, the descriptions of sea and weather especially vivid....In the end, the book seems as simple, and as vital, as the act of breathing itself.” —Adam Woog, The Seattle Times