A Year at the Races Spiral-Bound | 2005-04-19

Jane Smiley

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres comes an irresistibly smart, witty, and engaging chronicle of a novelist's lifelong obsession with horses. "Exuberant...witty, completely delightful.... A kind of National Velvet for adults." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Every horse story is a love story," writes Jane Smiley, who has loved horses for most of her life and owned and bred them for a good part of it. To love something is to observe it with more than usual attention, and that is precisely what Smiley does in this

In particular she follows a sexy filly named Waterwheel and a grey named Wowie (he "tells" a horse communicator that he wants it changed from Hornblower) as they begin careers at the racetrack. Filled with humor and suspense, and with discourses on equine intelligence, affection, and character, A Year at the Races is a winner.
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Original Binding: Trade Paperback
Pages: 304 pages
ISBN-10: 1400033179
Item Weight: 0.7 lbs
Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8.0 inches
"Exuberant...witty, completely delightful.... A kind of National Velvet for adults." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Smiley is arguably America's foremost author on the subject of love.... And love imbues this memoir." --The Washington Post

"Smiley has flung herself headlong...into horse racing.... Enough good horse stories to keep any reader happy." --The New York Times Book Review

"Invigorating...thought-provoking. A delightful book filled with arcane horse knowledge.... It could easily become the bible of the barn." --The Baltimore Sun
JANE SMILEY is the author of numerous novels, including, most recently, Good Faith, as well as a critically acclaimed biography of Charles Dickens. She is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001. Smiley owns several horses and lives in Northern California.