Let the Great World Spin: A Novel by Colum McCann

In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people. Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s. Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth. Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.” A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a “fiercely original talent” (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Colum McCann's Transatlantic.

- Google

The 1919th greatest fiction book of all time


This book is on the following lists:

  1. - National Book Award - Fiction (National Book Foundation)
  2. - The 80 Books Every Man Should Read (Esquire)

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Name Binding Sales Rank Lowest New Lowest Used Published
Let the Great World Spin Paperback 1583991 $2.16
Let the Great World Spin Paperback 806671 $0.01
Let the Great World Spin Paperback 2095151 $4.98 $0.01
Let The Great World Spin Paperback 2958656 $8.58 $0.01
Let the Great World Spin: A Novel Hardcover 81971 $9.13 $0.03 2009
Apeirogon: A Novel Paperback 99930 $15.99 2021
Let The Great World Spin Paperback 3567053 $19.35 $0.01
Let the Great World Spin Paperback 3881641 $6.38 $0.09
Let the Great World Spin: A Novel Audible Audiobook 14043 $29.99 2015
Let the Great World Spin: A Novel Hardcover 1607500 $12.35 $1.76 2009
Apeirogon: A Novel Hardcover 8362 $14.83 $13.00 2020
Thirteen Ways of Looking: A Novella and Three Stories Paperback 139970 $11.17 $1.99 2016
TransAtlantic: A Novel Paperback 162841 $5.95 $1.35 2014
Let the Great World Spin: A Novel Paperback 41864 $3.20 $0.99 2009
Let the Great World Spin Paperback 2004409 $12.19 $0.01
Let the Great World Spin: A Novel Kindle Edition 73591 $12.99 2009