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Great Circle

The soaring and emotional novel shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Booker Prize

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Great Circle

By: Maggie Shipstead
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Alex McKenna
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021**

**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022**

I WAS BORN TO BE A WANDERER

From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship; to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots looping and diving over the rugged forests of her childhood, to the thrill of flying Spitfires during the war, the life of Marian Graves has always been marked by a lust for freedom and danger.

In 1950, she embarks on her life's dream - to fly a Great Circle around the globe, pole to pole. But after a crash landing she finds herself stranded on the Antarctic ice without enough fuel. With one fearsome piece of water separating her from completion of the Circle, she writes one last entry in her logbook.

She is ready for her final journey.

Half a century later, Hadley Baxter, a brilliant, troubled Hollywood starlet is irresistibly drawn to play Marian Graves, a role that will lead her to probe the deepest mysteries of the vanished pilot's life.

GREAT CIRCLE is an enthralling journey over oceans and continents and a drama of exhilarating power. Combining unforgettable characters and thrilling suspense, it is a sweeping story of loss and obsession, sacrifice and survival, of the unknowable mysteries of freedom, love and life itself.

Praise for Maggie Shipstead, New York Times bestseller and winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and LA Times First Fiction Prize:

'Outrageously gifted' RICHARD RUSSO
'Ferociously clever' GUARDIAN
''Graceful and dazzling' MARIA SEMPLE
'Joyously good' DAILY MAIL
'impressive' JEFFREY EUGENIDES

© Maggie Shipstead 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

20th Century Action & Adventure Biographical Fiction Coming of Age Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Fiction Aviation War Native American Mystery

Critic Reviews

Luminous, masterful ... glides seamlessly through the 20th century immersing the reader. Tremendously well-written
A gripping historical adventure that feels sharp, fresh and modern
Shipstead turns phrases and observes people beautifully. Full of adventure, passion and tragedy... a glorious tribute to women who push the boundaries of their one, brief life, breaking the bonds of their place in history and their female bodies, to soar higher and faster than others; and the price they pay to live so fast
Impressive and gripping
What's so impressive is how deeply we care about each of these people, and how the shape and texture of each of their stories collide to build a story all its own. GREAT CIRCLE grasps for and ultimately reaches something extraordinary
The Marian portions rove from Montana to Manhattan to Scotland and Antarctica, and read like a carnival of early-20th-century American history, packed with bootleggers, treacherous boxcar rides, and tragic shipwrecks. The Hadley chapters offer a delectable dissection of life as a celebrity, serving up an intelligent skewering of the Hollywood machine and allowing the book to take flight
GREAT CIRCLE is a novel of our insatiable need to stare down the terrible, magnificent vastness of it all: love, war, desire, fear ... A sweeping, swashbuckling book, full of oversaturated colour and grand destiny. The joy of this dynamic, soaring novel is not a welcome extra but its very engine
Encompasses flight, travel adventure, identity, sexuality, family, the celebrity age - and in such beautiful writing. A masterpiece.
Rocked by the cool cadences of Shipstead's prose, readers will embark on a journey through time and space. Across 600 pages, they'll link arms with its characters as they stroll along the decks of early-1900s ocean liners, then board private jets to eavesdrop on the poolside parties of 21st-century Hollywood. They'll spot eagles arcing over the wild frontiers of Prohibition-era America then feel the lonely, existential chill of the white expanses of Antarctica - in between city breaks in Europe and Australia
This wonderful novel weaves together the story of two women: a female aviator who goes missing in the1950s and the Hollywood star playing her in a film in the present day. A commitment that rewards with memorable characters and vivid storytelling
All stars
Most relevant
an epic of a story but so so worth it. while some details, characters, and storylines may seem irrelevant it all ties together in some way, shape or form to complete a brilliant story. the emotional honesty and complexity was gripping.

epic.

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Didn't want it to end, great character development and has twists along the way. Was slightly slow I'm the middle, in Marion's married days but winds up again.

loved it! Ripping yarn well narrated.

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Loved this book and all its interwoven characters. Settle in, because it’s long. I’d love to revisit the modern sections - those characters just spring off the page

A brilliantly executed historical fiction

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I loved every winding second of this story. One of the best books I’ve ever had the pleasure of getting lost in. Both the story and the narration were fantastic.

Epic adventure

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For such an epic novel, it kept me enthralled from the first page to the last. A worthy shortlist of the Man Booker 2021, should have won in my opinion. the narrators were both incredible, managing to portray many different characters with skill and ease. Highly recommend this book and this particular audio version.

I could give this 500 stars!

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