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The New Wilderness
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
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The New Wilderness
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Summary
Shortlisted for 2020 Booker Prize
From an acclaimed Guardian First Book Award finalist comes a debut novel.
Bea's five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away. The smog and pollution of the overdeveloped, overpopulated metropolis they call home is ravaging her lungs. Bea knows she cannot stay in the City, but there is only one alternative: the Wilderness State. Mankind has never been allowed to venture into this vast expanse of untamed land. Until now.
Bea and Agnes join 18 other volunteers who agree to take part in a radical experiment. They must slowly learn how to live in the unpredictable, often dangerous Wilderness, leaving no trace on their surroundings in their quest to survive. But as Agnes embraces this new existence, Bea realises that saving her daughter's life might mean losing her in ways she hadn't foreseen.
At once a blazing lament of our contempt for nature and a deeply humane portrayal of motherhood, The New Wilderness is an extraordinary, urgent novel from a celebrated new literary voice.
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Critic reviews
“Cook's is a fresh and vivid voice; it's unsurprising the likes of Miranda July and Roxane Gay are fans.” (Observer)
“The New Wilderness is a virtuosic debut, brutal and beautiful in equal measure.” (Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel)
What listeners say about The New Wilderness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- N. Howard
- 09-10-20
A cold book about cold people
I struggled to finish this book. The main child character is particularly disturbing in her lack of warmth and inability to reciprocate love, but the absence of bonding and mutual care is pervasive in the atmosphere of the book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Janet Jones
- 04-04-21
Good storyline...
and I enjoyed it until the end, which I think let it down. The research into writing this book is very good though. The narrator was good.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mrs F
- 05-10-20
Stunning
Dystopia for grown ups, no cliches, no rugged ex army heroes who happen to have an off grid homestead with a lifetime supply of wood, fuel, solar energy, snow mobils , testosterone, chiselled chin and greying temples, no wispy blonde bombshell who despite having survived an EMP strike, a Zombie Apocalypse and a Solar Flare, still maintained her sharp cheekbones and flawless skin , no leg hair, no Body odour.
This book is scary as it is within the grasp of reality, and depicts the true need for human beings to be led by a leader despite sacrificing who they are, and what previous morals they held.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- J. Deane
- 06-02-21
Environmental dystopia
The ballad of Beatrice and Agnes is set in a mythic and dystopia future, which has certain contradictions, with much unexplained. The story of a girl growing to maturity wild and free, but under threat is well written and narrated. Estrangement from family and from nature are at the heart, and the killing of what we love.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- leon & Emma
- 23-10-20
Strong start
Didn't wrap up like I felt it should, bit abrupt ending. Worth a listen though :)
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Helen
- 28-01-21
Unique
I found this a real adventure listen, reality though didn't dwell on the romantic notion of living in wilderness in the future. Great narration too.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Chloe
- 19-09-21
<holds own hand in reassurance>
I have to keep telling myself it’s ok and we aren’t here yet. eech, but we will be. a poignant personal story, and a truly foreboding portent.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Jo
- 09-03-22
Interesting genre, frustrating story.
I found lots about this story to love. The descriptions of the settings, the post-apocalyptic feel, the way the group worked and grew and changed.
However the relationships between people and the massive gaps in the story I found very frustrating at times and the ending was disappointing to say the least.
I would read a story by this author again.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Alice May
- 19-09-20
Unbelievably overrated
Hard to comprehend how this made the Booker Shortlist when Mantel's The Mirror and the Light didn't. Although why the person who spawned Jack Reacher should be one of the judges makes a mockery of what this literary prize is supposed to be.
Anyway - I digress. The New Wilderness is full of implausible characters, hazily sketched ideas, and even lazier plot holes. I can only assume it's made the list because of its timely subject. We don't learn why particular things do or don't happen. But not in a deliberate, skilful way - ie to fill us with unease and existential dread - just in a way that leaves us suspecting Cook either couldn't be bothered to explain them, or worse, didn't even realise she needed to.
For instance, without giving too much away one deeply irritating point is the fact the rangers keep popping up like Mr Ben at various points to rail at the group of people who have been allowed into the wilderness. They despise the group, but it doesn't appear that the rangers are protective of nature per se; just that they like to use nature as a metaphorical stick to beat these hapless people with. I gave up trying to fathom why when I gave up trying to care.
The narrator made it possible for me to stick with it till the end, but that's the best I can say for it. Far from the thought-provoking, intelligent read I was expecting, it left me with a horrible sense that this is a book JK Rowling would like to have written.
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13 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dearauntie
- 28-06-22
Brutal and tender.
Impossible to say why I liked the story without spoilers but the language was true, honest, cruel, kind and poetic. It didn't just show emotions, it moved me. I will read more of her work.
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