
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
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Narrated by:
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Emily Janice Card
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By:
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Marisha Pessl
After a childhood spent moving from one academic outpost to another with her father (a man prone to aphorisms and meteoric affairs), Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge. And she is quite the cineaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the elite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah's friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide - or misguide - her.
Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class, Pessl's debut novel is complex yet compelling, erudite yet accessible. It combines the suspense of Hitchcock, the self-parody of Dave Eggers, and the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt with a dazzling intelligence and wit entirely Pessl's own.
©2006 Marisha Pessl (P)2007 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...



















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Critic reviews
New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, 2006
“Gripping and dark, funny and poignant . . . Pessl’s talent for verbal acrobatics keeps the pages flipping.” —USA Today
“A whirling, glittering, multifaceted marvel, delivered in an irrepressibly smart and flamboyant new voice. . . . Q: Is Special Topics in Calamity Physics required reading for devotees of inventive new fiction? A: Yes.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“The joys of this shrewdly playful narrative lie not only in the high-low darts and dives of Pessl’s tricky plotting, but in her prose, which floats and runs as if by instinct, unpremeditated and unerring. . . . This skylarking book will leave readers salivating for more.” —The New York Times Book Review
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outstanding
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I am also a sucker for a book setup stylistically. i enjoyed the way Pessl broke each chapter into a mandatory read on a syllabus. i thrived on all the old film and film star references, the book quotes, the comparisons to things that only someone in the know (i happened to be in the know most of the time) would enjoy.
i loved the ending of this book. it took me to a place i really didn't expect it to go. i don't mind being tricked by a book, in fact, i welcome it. and this book really did it.
surprisingly complex for a coming of age story
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I almost gave up early when our protagonist cliche-ed that someone was as flat as East Texas plains.
Everyone knows East Texas has hills and piney woods, the plains are in West Texas. Kinda made me wonder if there were other errors, but it’s a novel! Not a text book.
Enjoyed This Book, but
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Slow to start fascinating story
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hard to get into, but improved toward the end
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Not excellent writing but strangely gripping story
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Exceptional story brought to life by a gifted narrator! Highly recommended
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Is there anything you would change about this book?
This author doesn't just take the scenic route in this novel, she parks at the first curve for 75% of it. I will admit that once you wade through the superfluous text, there is a pretty good story with some pretty interesting characters to be found. But it's an awful lot of work for not that great a reward. By that, I am NOT referring to the open ending - that was the one part I liked, because it's not like an Agatha Christi where the answer is in the story - there is no right answer, and it is still a good story. But it's not a great story, and the endless, looping, rambling, unnecessarily distracting prose, and the whole schtick of the 'bibliography as a story line' were just hard work that only served to further demonstrate that the actual story wasn't really good enough to either outweigh all that negative, or serve as a reward for all the hard work we readers had to put in to get to it.Way too meandering
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confusing!!
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Surprisingly Entertaining
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