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    Pie in the Sky
    Pie in the Sky
    Pie in the Sky
    Audiobook7 hours

    Pie in the Sky

    Written by Jane Smiley

    Narrated by Angela Goethals

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Abby Lovitt doesn't realize how unprepared she is when she takes her beloved horse, True Blue, to a clinic led by the most famous equestrian anyone knows. The biggest surprise, though, is that Sophia, the girl who never makes a mistake, suddenly makes so many that she stops riding. Who will ride her horse? Abby's dad seems to think it will be Abby. Pie in the Sky is the most expensive horse Abby has ever ridden. But he is proud and irritable, and he takes Abby's attention away from the continuing mystery that is True Blue. And then there's high school--Abby finds new friends, but also new challenges, and a larger world that sometimes seems strange and intimidating. She begins to wonder if there is another way to look at horses, people, and life itself. Accompanied by the beautiful imagery of 1960s Northern California, Abby's charming mix of innocence and wisdom guide us through Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley's latest middle-grade horse novel.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 20, 2015
    ISBN9781501919947
    Pie in the Sky
    Author

    Jane Smiley

    Jane Smiley is a novelist and essayist. Her novel A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992, and her novel The All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton won the 1999 Spur Award for Best Novel of the West. She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1987. Her novel Horse Heaven was short-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002, and her novel, Private Life, was chosen as one of the best books of 2010 by The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post.

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    Reviews for Pie in the Sky

    4/5

    17 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I thought that this book was phenomenal and highly recommend it for two main reasons. First, it was a fantastic story. The characters were so real and so believable that I felt that I could sit down and talk to them - especially Jane. I found myself reading slower as I got to the end because I didn't want the story to end. Second, way back when I was in school, we were never taught about women who did heroic things during wars and this book was a real eye opener for me. It was based on the real life female journalists and photo journalists who were side by side (or tried to be) with the men during World War II. The two main characters Liv, a photographer, and Jane, a journalist, go AWOL from behind American lines to try to get to Paris for the liberation. They put up with lots of hardship to accomplish what was a major career and personal goal for both of them - to report the stories as they were happening. To sum it all up in two words -- READ IT!
    • 5/5
      This was a "two tear" book meaning I shed tears twice while reading it. Excellent story of WWII journalists, in today's world one does not need to predicate with female but during WWII women had to climb mountains to be allowed the opportunity to cover the war.Loved the book and I am inspired to read more about Boufke-White and Gellhorn and their stories.Fascinating and touching story of the war, friendships, and ambition. I would recommend this book to everyone who enjoys gritty historic fiction.
    • 4/5
      News has always been about getting "the scoop." Even now when news is pretty much instantaneous, we will find breaking news alerts or scrolls as each news outlet rushes to be the first to tell us about a new story or new development in something ongoing. In World War II, photographers and journalists couldn't beam their work to the world in the breath of a nanosecond but in a way, that made the desire to be the one to break a story or release the first photographs that much more consuming. Whoever got there first had the chance of immortality through the words and photos that would always define a seminal event for the waiting public. And one of the biggest coups of the war would be documenting the liberation of occupied Paris. Every correspondent and photographer working then knew it and wanted to be the one to file first. Meg Waite Clayton's newest novel, The Race For Paris, a decade in the writing, looks at the push to be the first in Paris not only as journalists but as female journalists who were not supposed to be anywhere near this enormous and significant event.Jane is a "girl reporter" for a Nashville paper who has not been able to get any closer to the front in France than a field hospital. She is fairly resigned to her out-of-immediate-action post and the refusal of the CO to authorize her any further forward until Olivia James Harper arrives in camp. Liv is an AP photographer whose husband runs the New York Daily Press. She is not content to stay behind the action even though she and Jane file some emotionally wrenching stories and photos from the hospital that garner them acclaim from Eleanor Roosevelt herself. Citing other brave female journalists and photographers defying orders, Liv and Jane go AWOL, determined to make their way to the front and to join the race to Paris. Happening across a photographer named Fletcher who Liv knows thanks to his connection to her husband and who is working for British Intelligence, the three join forces as they slowly cross the destroyed and still contested French countryside.With MPs after them, the trio weaves around, taking photographs and writing stories, documenting the slow drive toward the city. They encounter horror, carnage, and gunfire. They, like the troops, must wait for the clouds to clear so the planes can fly. They are slowed by the lack of gasoline just as the rest of the convoy heading to Paris is. They camp out in barns and the woods, exposed to the elements or in danger of bombing. They take risks and defy convention for the profession that drives them. In short, they endure all the things that the powers that be think to be beyond the capabilities and sensibilities of women. Both Liv and Jane slowly reveal pieces of their pasts, their personalities, and the things that drive them as they alternately rush onward and wait impatiently, determined not to be left behind.The narrative is framed by a 1994 exhibit showcasing Liv's wartime photos and celebrating the release of a book collecting those images. A simple question about the dedication of the book pushes the narrative back into the past when those photos were being taken. Liv's character is a whirlwind of action and while Jane often comes across as the trusty sidekick, it is her character narrating the majority of the story, capturing them thumbing their noses at the professional road blocks thrown in their way, documenting their growing friendship and the different kinds of muddled, hopeless love that springs up in the trio, crafting the story of their push to Paris and beyond. Although Fletcher narrates some as well, his character is seemingly less driven, less ambitious, and less knowable than the women's. The narrative tension waxes and wanes with the forward movement of the troops interspersed by the long periods of waiting for action, just as in any actual war. But even a slackening of the tension doesn't keep the reader from turning the pages, wanting to know more about these women, who were inspired by a compilation of real women correspondents and photographers of the times. The book is thoroughly researched and well written with visually evocative passages painting the scene very clearly in the reader's mind's eye. It is a fascinating look at women who dared, who excelled at their chosen professions despite the socially designed obstructions thrown up at them. And it is a different view of the war, through the eyes of those covering it, the way that their reports shaped public morale, and what was ultimately covered and what was hidden. A quick and gripping tale, the reader will not necessarily be surprised by the climax but the pleasure really is in the getting there. Fans of WWII fiction and fans of well written, unusual historical fiction should definitely include this on their reading lists.
    • 4/5
      The Race For Paris by Meg Waite Clayton borrowed generously from the experiences and memoirs of women journalists and photographers like Martha Gellhorn, Helen Kirkpatrick, and Margaret Bourke-Whitewho disregarded the rules in order to cover World War II from the front. There was a rule that only men journalists could report from the front lines, the women were shunted to hospitals, refugee centers and military headquarters, all well to the rear. This story is about two American female correspondents who go AWOL as they try to document the Allied liberation of Paris. To actually be there when the troops marched in was to record history and would make their careers. Overall, I thought the author did a fine job of blending history and fiction. She certainly gets across the difficulties that women correspondents faced. The Race for Paris is a great blend of drama, adventure and passion as these two foolhardy women along with a British military photographer race through the French countryside toward Paris.I enjoyed The Race For Paris on many levels, but probably most for the history. I thought the characters were a little under-developed for me to fully invest in their storyline, but I would certainly recommend this book to any lovers of WW II history as this is a subject that I haven’t seen addressed before.
    • 4/5
      Courage is “the ability to do something that frightens one.” [Oxford Dictionaries] In a male-dominated world, Olivia (Liv) Harper and Jane Tyler manage to break into the field of wartime journalism by sheer determination. The two women meet in a French field hospital in June 1944. Jane is a journalist from Nashville; in fact the story is told in her first person account. Liv is a photographer for the AP. They are covering WWII from the perspective of the doctors and nurses dealing with soldiers who have been injured. Not all of the men make it; they cover that too. Some of the injured soldiers are German; they cover that too. They continue to request a transfer to the frontlines in France. They are continually denied. No longer willing to accept ‘no’ from her commanding officer, Liv decides to make a go of it on her own. Jane agrees to go with her. They meet Fletcher Roebuck, a British Military photographer, and against his better judgement, he agrees to travel with and escort the two.Meg Waite Clayton tells us in her ‘Author’s Note’, “Although this is a work of fiction, I’ve striven to make it historically accurate, and to that end have borrowed heavily from the facts of the lives of soldiers, support troops, journalists, and civilians involved in the war, and particularly from the experiences of … pioneering women.” Upon reading The Race for Paris, it is no doubt in my mind of the meticulous research the author put into her work. The chapters are not numbered. Instead, they are headed by the place and date much like a journal. Also at the beginning of each chapter is a quote from actual female journalists from that time. Photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White was quoted as saying, “I learned to appreciate a nice, deep, muddy ditch which I could roll into during shelling … to take a satisfactory bath in my helmet without upsetting it … to live like a gypsy, out of my bed roll, and to sleep almost anywhere.”Jane and Liv were fictional, but their lives compare in a big way to the lives of actual lady journalists and photographers of their day. The first and last chapters were fifty years later, in celebration and commemoration of these women. The rest of the novel is a flashback to their story. I did have a problem with the pacing. The race turned out to be from the perspective of the tortoise and not the hare as there was much ado about small things. Rating: 3.5 out of 5.