By the acclaimed author of "The Highest Tide" comes a story that is at once comic, tender, and momentous--a riveting portrait of a distinctive community, an inventive love story, and fiction of the highest order.
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By the acclaimed author of "The Highest Tide" comes a story that is at once comic, tender, and momentous--a riveting portrait of a distinctive community, an inventive love story, and fiction of the highest order.
Read Less
Add this copy of Border Songs to cart. $1.38, very good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf Publishing Group.
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Very Good. 9781937933012. All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofi t job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.
Add this copy of Border Songs to cart. $1.72, good condition, Sold by Seattle Goodwill rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Seattle, WA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf Publishing Group.
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May have some shelf-wear due to normal use. Your purchase funds free job training and education in the greater Seattle area. Thank you for supporting Goodwill's nonprofit mission!
Add this copy of Border Songs to cart. $1.72, fair condition, Sold by Seattle Goodwill rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Seattle, WA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf Publishing Group.
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Fair. May have some shelf-wear due to normal use. Your purchase funds free job training and education in the greater Seattle area. Thank you for supporting Goodwill's nonprofit mission!
Add this copy of Border Songs to cart. $1.73, very good condition, Sold by Jenson Books Inc rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Logan, UT, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf Publishing Group.
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Very good. A well-cared-for item that has seen limited use but remains in great condition. The item is complete, unmarked, and undamaged, but may show some limited signs of wear. Item works perfectly. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine is undamaged.
Add this copy of Border Songs to cart. $3.48, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brownstown, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf.
Add this copy of Border Songs to cart. $3.48, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brownstown, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf.
Add this copy of Border Songs to cart. $3.48, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf.
Add this copy of Border Songs to cart. $3.50, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Ruby rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf.
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Add this copy of Border Songs to cart. $4.93, very good condition, Sold by citywbooks rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Salt Lake City, UT, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf.
Add this copy of Border Songs to cart. $6.50, very good condition, Sold by Book Alley rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Pasadena, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf.
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Very good. Advanced Reader's Copy; PAPERBACK. Light wear to cover. NO marks in text; binding is tight. A very nice copy. Pasadena's finest independent new and used bookstore.
Like the works of E.L. Doctorow, Border Songs is one of those slow, rich stories that suck you in with their sweet, sympathetic and quirky characters and then hooks you with sly observations and deep resonant themes.
Brandon Vanderkool, the main character, is one of the most unique heroes in recent fiction. A giant, awkward, fish-out-of-water, Brandon?s unique brand of autism and dyslexia transforms him into something of a performance artist and Zen master. He sees everything at once, in the moment, without judgment, making him uniquely qualified as both a bird watcher (his passion) and a border patrol agent (his accidental vocation), but much less so at simple human interaction. He?s something of an idiot savant?reminiscent of Peter Sellers in Being There?always in the right place at the right time without actually intending it.
The other characters are rich and wonderful: Norm Vanderkool, the gruff and weary dairyman who has been building a 40 foot sail boat in his barn, his wife in the first stages of Alzheimer?s, Wayne the hyper political Canadian professor, his reckless, pot-growing daughter and the lively masseuse and chronicler Sophie. While Brandon is living truly free and aloof, the others are all defining, divining and denying freedom in various ways?even the pathetic people who are caught attempting to cross the Canadian border into the USA. The theme here is borders?duh?both the lines drawn on the map and the lines we draw around ourselves.
On top of the rich portrayals, the humorous skewering of both the Canadian pot culture and the paranoid, right-wing mentality of the US after 9/11 is quite delightful and, at times, reminiscent of the slyer works of TC Boyle. Rich in place, character and themes, Border Songs was one of the best books I read last year.
wallareader
Sep 8, 2011
A true favorite
This is a wonderful funny and exciting story that takes place in the Pacific Northwest, that shows how much can be going on around you if only look in a different direction.
I hate to catagorize this story as a Forest Gump, or nerd's rule, but simple how a very regular goof (much like all the rest of us) finds events happening by looking at the perifial that the rest of us take for granted.
mizzy
Oct 24, 2009
Life Along the Border of BC/WA
This is Lynch's 2nd novel about a male outside the mainstream, with a passion for nature and the environment. Brandon Vanderkool is a 23 yr old 6'8" autistic, dyslexic, and artistic son of a dairy farmer, who has just become a Border Patrol. He has an uncanny knack for stumbling across drug runners, smugglers, gun caches- and he has a vast knowledge of the bird habitat of the area. Lynch has a colorful and slyly humorous way of describing characters on both sides of the border. Dunbars, Ericksons, Hoffmans, Moffatts, and Sophie Winslow (town mystery woman) are introduced. There is a lot of border confusion, ignorance, and fear-politics on both sides. Plus probably more than you want to know about dairy farming! This is a wise, comfortable, sensitive and sensible tale that has both despair and hope as a theme. It is a delightful read- handled with a very light touch.
