The Elegance of the Hedgehog The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

    • 4.0 • 106 Ratings
    • $11.99
    • $11.99

Publisher Description

The phenomenal New York Times bestseller that “explores the upstairs-downstairs goings-on of a posh Parisian apartment building” (Publishers Weekly).

In an elegant hôtel particulier in Paris, Renée, the concierge, is all but invisible—short, plump, middle-aged, with bunions on her feet and an addiction to television soaps. Her only genuine attachment is to her cat, Leo. In short, she’s everything society expects from a concierge at a bourgeois building in an upscale neighborhood. But Renée has a secret: She furtively, ferociously devours art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With biting humor, she scrutinizes the lives of the tenants—her inferiors in every way except that of material wealth.

Paloma is a twelve-year-old who lives on the fifth floor. Talented and precocious, she’s come to terms with life’s seeming futility and decided to end her own on her thirteenth birthday. Until then, she will continue hiding her extraordinary intelligence behind a mask of mediocrity, acting the part of an average pre-teen high on pop culture, a good but not outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide their true talents and finest qualities from a world they believe cannot or will not appreciate them. But after a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building, they will begin to recognize each other as kindred souls, in a novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us, and “teaches philosophical lessons by shrewdly exposing rich secret lives hidden beneath conventional exteriors” (Kirkus Reviews).

“The narrators’ kinetic minds and engaging voices (in Alison Anderson’s fluent translation) propel us ahead.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Barbery’s sly wit . . . bestows lightness on the most ponderous cogitations.” —The New Yorker

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
RELEASED
2008
September 2
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
325
Pages
PUBLISHER
Europa Editions
SELLER
OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC
SIZE
2.7
MB

Customer Reviews

0402MDL ,

Unforgettable

One of those books that made me feel alone when it ended…like I’d lost a friend.

fxklotz ,

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Simply, just wow. This gem stirred emotions I never knew existed in my being.

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