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Enlightenment

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Enlightenment

By: Sarah Perry
Narrated by: Alex Jennings
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Enlightenment is a story of love and astronomy, told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends.

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits - torn between their commitment to religion and their desire for more. But their friendship is threatened by the arrival of romantic love.

Thomas falls for James Bower, who runs the local museum. Together they develop an obsession with the vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and whose identity might finally be revealed when a startling discovery is made. As Thomas fears a broken heart, he comes to find solace in astronomy: might it offer as much as earthly or even divine love? Meanwhile Grace meets Nathan, a fellow sixth former. They are drawn recklessly together, but quickly pulled apart, casting Grace into the wider world and far away from Thomas.

In time, the mysteries of Aldleigh are revealed, bringing Thomas and Grace back to each other and to a richer understanding of love, of the nature of the world and their place in it.

This ambitious novel about love and faith and science is Sarah Perry's finest work to date.

©2024 Sarah Perry (P)2024 Penguin Audio
Christian Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Heartfelt

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Wonderous

The story by Sarah Perry is a wonderful triumph. A wonderous, compassionate, and human account of love, desire, philosophy and frailty of the soul.

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Devastatingly brilliant

Sarah Perry opens up the human heart with a surgeon’s skill. Under a bright, uncompromising light, she exposes its desires and devastations, its jealousies and mercies; above all, its capacity to love. She makes us sit with discomfort. She makes us think about how free we are to make decisions, and whether meaning is ultimately derived from our relationships to others. This book is moving, though it doesn’t always move you where you most want to go—and I feel that’s what makes it so special.

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Just too drudging

This really felt like an endurance test rather than an enjoyable read. The voice wasn’t my favourite and that combined with dense writing and forgettable characters meant I finished out of obligation rather than desire.

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3 people found this helpful

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An absorbing, thought provoking listen

I love the way Sarah Perry writes here, marrying the love and grief of relationships with the intricacies of cosmology. I was gripped by the story, though I felt it could have been shorter and tighter without losing any of the impact.

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Extraordinary!

Rich, magical, melancholic and joyful. Exquisitely sorrowful, it tells a tale of connections and Existence, humanity and Space. Beautifully written, expertly narrated, it is my fiction book of the year, 2024 💛🌟 I am bereft at the completion of it and revelling in its wonder!

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Beautiful

I love all of Sarah Perry’s writing and this book delivered everything I hoped it would. Love and loss and hope and despair and stars and mystery. Wonderful.

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The atmosphere created by the reader's voice

l loved it all..but then I love all Sarah Perry's novels.Very atmospheric and gripping in its telling.

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Wonderful story

I loved everything about this book, the characterisation, the story, the meticulous research and Alex Jennings exquisite narration.

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Magnificent read and listen

The interplay of the human and cosmic and such beauty of thought and expression on the page Stunning

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An entrancing book

This is powerful rendering of a deep, subtle, complex, sometimes magical, always human and humane, story of love, pain and wonder.

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