Genre: Historical Fiction
Length: 399 pages
Audiobook Length: 13 hours and 52 minutes
First Published: 2019
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Publisher’s Description
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.
The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky.
What happens to them–and to the men they love–becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. These heroic women refuse to be cowed by men or by convention. And though they face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is at times breathtakingly beautiful, at others brutal, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives.
Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic–a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.
Quotes from The Giver of Stars
She just wasn’t sure she had yet been to the place she was homesick for.
You know the worst thing about a man hitting you?” Margery said finally. “Ain’t the hurt. It’s that in that instant you realize the truth of what it is to be a woman. That it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how much better at arguing, how much better than them period. It’s when you realize they can always shut you up with a fist. Just like that.” She mulled over it for a moment, then straightened up, and flashed Alice a tight smile. “Course, you know that only happens till you learn to hit back harder”
About Jojo Moyes
Jojo Moyes is a former journalist and a novelist whose works include the Me Before You trilogy as well as Paris for One, The Girl You Left Behind and One Plus One, Someone Else’s Shoes, and The Giver of Stars. She lives on a farm in Essex, England, with her husband and children. Visit the author’s website →
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