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Summary and Reviews of Run by Ann Patchett

Run by Ann Patchett

Run

by Ann Patchett
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  • First Published:
  • Sep 25, 2007, 304 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jul 2008, 320 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you've never even met.

Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive, and ambitious father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children—all his children—safe.

Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you've never even met. As in her bestselling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children.

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Reviews

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There is a magical quality to the writing - not a hocus-pocus abracadabra, pull a rabbit out of the hat magic, but a more primal magic that makes one shiver in realization that below the mundane every-day world is a shimmering substrata of unconditional love...continued

Full Review (515 words)

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(Reviewed by Lee Gooden).

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Beyond the Book



Ichthyology

Ichthyology is the branch of zoology that studies fish. This includes skeletal fish, cartilaginous fish and jawless fish.

There are at least 25,000 fish species in existence. Each year, about 250 new species are discovered and described.

The largest species of fish known is theWhale Shark, which can grow to up to 50 feet in length and can weigh 15 tons or more.

There is much debate over which is the smallest known species of fish. One contender is the tiny carp-like Paedocypris progenetica, that grows to a maximum of about 10mm.

Another is the male Photocorynus spiniceps which grows to about 6 mm at maturity; but he is hampered in his claim by the overly-large female spiniceps that grows to a record-destroying 4.5cm!

Possibly the strongest ...

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