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Fishing for Stars
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 22 hrs and 57 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Nicholas Duncan is a semi-retired shipping magnate who resides in idyllic Beautiful Bay in Indonesia, where he is known as the old patriarch of the islands. He is grieving the loss of his beautiful Eurasian wife, Anna, and is suffering for the first time from disturbing flashbacks to WWII, the scene of their first meeting and early love. His other wartime lover is the striking Marg Hamilton, a powerful and influential political player in Australia who has remained close to Nick. Marg suspects Nick is suffering the onset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and organises for a specialist to meet with him in Sydney. But when they meet, Tony Freedman stirs long-buried emotions in Nick and the two men don't hit it off.
Nick leaves in an explosion of anger and finds himself in hospital after being hit by a car. Tony visits and encourages Nick to write as a form of therapy - to write about Anna. So he sets about writing about the woman who has inspired him since his late teens, and in doing so draws us into the compelling tale of the life he has lived post war-hero days building a shipping empire, navigating international corruption, supporting his wife's third-world education crusade and loving the women who inspire him. Set in the exotic locale of the spice islands during the excitement of post-war prosperity and possibility, and driven by strong, colourful characters, this book is truly epic in scope. Is it possible for a man to love two women?
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What listeners say about Fishing for Stars
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Greta
- 18-02-2021
Enjoyable, but no match to the Persimmon Tree
Love Bryce Courtenay as an author, however this fell a bit short of the prequel, 'The Persimmon Tree'. I'm not sure if the time period and world events weren't as compelling as the first story, but I found myself wondering a few times how much longer the story could continue. The tale follows the life of main character Nicholas Duncan - Aussie larrikin adventurer turned business magnate has had the fortune of becoming very successful after the war. The whole premise is his life struggle trying to choose between his two great loves 'Anna' and 'Marg' ... but honestly, how is it that hard? I found it a little disingenuous and Nick's character came across as much less heroic in this, able to be bossed around by both formidable women (who of course were chalk and cheese), and never really able to make his own decisions. Nick even allowed Marg to use his relationship with Anna to manipulate situations several times, which was a little pathetic. The most exciting part of the story was set in Japan but again, it was nowhere near as compelling or full of as many interesting and beautiful facts as the first book. Narration was fantastic - the narrator has a great ability to take on many accents, male and female and make them each sound unique. But overall not my favourite read/listen.
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- Jaidee
- 06-04-2020
Nice follow up to the persimmon tree.
The persimmon tree did leave me wanting more so it was good to expand on the story. It did drag on at times but I thought the weaving of the main characters into the birth of the green movement was nicely done.
Humphrey Bower’s narration was superb as usual.
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- Anonymous User
- 17-01-2022
Epic
Yet another action & emotion-filled drama. Some good reminders of Australian historic events. Highly recommended.
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- Anonymous User
- 25-11-2022
Awesome
Enjoyed both the fiction and the factual aspects of this and the first book. Love the narrator.
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- W*BvK
- 23-04-2020
A Must to Finalise The Persimmon Tree
I loved the Persimmon Tree and Fishing for Stars is the finalization that was needed to close the story. but
Some of the promises of Characters in the Persimmon Tree dwindled and became tangential. Marge offered so much promise in character development in TPT but was lost in FFS as I regret young Bryce's political Dilemma took over. I actually fast forward over the Tasmanian experience as it became tedious. The editor in the rewrite should have cut this dramatically. Kevin's character developed and allowed him to fit and contribute to the book.
A must-read if you read the Persimmon Tree.....
A more minor point is that some of the Japanese references were actually Chinese.
The final chapter makes it worth buying the book.
Well worth the read if you read The Persimmon Tree first.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-08-2020
Fishing for stars
I very much enjoyed this book, although found some of it overwhelming and main character interactions with Anna & Marg hard for me to believe. I relistened to a few chapters especially the last two which helped a lot. A great story, well worth reading and the ending chapter is dramatic and emotional and promotes deep thought.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-05-2018
A Great Book!
Really found this book hard to put down at times, but occasionally it was a bit far fetched. The narrator is magnificent!
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- Anonymous User
- 04-06-2020
amazing book with alot of historical information
loved this book as it filled in alot of the gaps and expanded on the previous book the persimmon tree. highly recommend it.
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- Kindle Customer
- 05-05-2020
Fishing for stars
What a wonderful story teller Bryce Courtney is. He transports the reader to a different era and keeps you there. It is advisable to read the first book before this one otherwise you miss out on another great 👍 book that is referred to in this story. Congrats
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- Aubrey Lee
- 29-06-2020
Awesome story
As usual, Brycey boi produces the goods. Not essential to listen to the persimmon tree first but it gives a good back story to fishing for stars and you will fall in love with the characters even more. 10/10 would listen again 👌
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