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Cold Sassy Tree | 
 enlarge | Author: Olive Ann Burns
Publisher: Books on Tape, Inc.
Category: Book
Buy New: $88.00
New (1) Used (2) from $1.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  219 reviews
Sales Rank: 6702511
Media: Audio Cassette
ISBN: 0736612076
EAN: 9780736612074
ASIN: 0736612076
Publication Date: January 5, 1987
Availability: In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served.
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Product Description
Cold Sassy, Georgia, had never been a whirlpool of excitement. If the preacher's wife's petticoats showed, the ladies could make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpson -- a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee! "Rich with emotion, humor and tenderness...a novel about an old man growing young, a young man growing up, and the modern age coming to a small Southern town." (The Washington Post Book World) Slightly edited for radio presentation.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 214 more reviews...
A Great Place to Re-Visit October 29, 2008
I knew I would love reading Cold Sassy Tree when I picked it up last week, because I had read it before, many years ago, what I didn't expect was to find its lessons, old and classic as they are, to be so relevant to the world today. The hero of the book, Rucker Blakeslee, is heroic because of his fierce determination to pursue his own happiness while caring for those he loves, even if it appeared to those nosy and ever so proper neighbors and even family members who watched him so closely, that he had gone completely off his rocker. It is through the close observations of the story's narrator, 12 year old Will Tweedy, that the reader sees the true motivations and truly brave and loving character that Grandpa Blakeslee is.
Set in a small southern town on the brink of modernization, Olive Ann Burns' novel is funny, poignant and inspiring. Like the town itself, Cold Sassy Tree's inhabitants are taking tentative baby steps toward maturation and new ways. Will's adolescent adventures in romance, and his father's daring purchase of the town's first new automobile, are allegories of what these sheltered and set-in-their ways people are experiencing: thoughts and things that are different than what they are used to. And no townsman is more stubborn and settled in the old, nor more daring and dogged in his explorations of the new than Grandpa Blakeslee.
In today's world of rapidly changing thought, theory and technology, Olive Ann Burns' novel inspires us to think outside the box, and teaches us not to prejudge others who may appear to be off their rocker. Cold Sassy Tree also reminds us that while we bravely pursue the new and the maybe better, it is the undaunted and active loving of those around us that ultimately makes us heroic.
 good service, good condition October 28, 2008
would order again, book came in good time
and in fine condition, good job!
Great book September 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Am enjoying this book and the cultural visit to the deep south in the mid-1900's. Will provide some grist for comments and comparisons at the monthly book club.
Wonderful depiction of a small southern town in the early 1900's June 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
According to the flyleaf, this book was written while the author was recovering from cancer. Olive Ann Burns based the book on stories she heard from her parents and other relatives and she recreated the small Georgia town where she grew up, dubbing it Cold Sassy after the local sassafras trees. Her main character is Will Tweedy, a typical 14-year-old boy who has the usual and sometimes unusual adventures of a boy living in Georgia at the turn of the century. Will overhears a lot of conversations about his grandfather who has the audacity to remarry a mere 3 weeks after his first wife dies. This is a delightful book about a bygone era when many people lived near their relatives in a rural setting and everybody knew everyone else's business.
Perspectives on death March 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I recently read this book for our monthly book club. It tells the story of Cold Sassy Tree through the eyes of a young boy. What our book club felt was most interesting was the way the theme of death was the main thread throughout the story. It is one of those rare, but delightful books which keeps you thinking, long after you have read the last page.
Even if death is the theme, the book is amusing and not depressing. The characters are life-like and very real. I recommend this book to any one who enjoys the abstract, as well as the obvious.
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