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The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Muriel Barbery, Alison Anderson (translator)
Europa Editions
ISBN: 978-1-933372-60-0
Pub. date: September 2008
336 pages
Size: 5.25 x 8.25
Price: $15.00


 
July 29 2010 - Chasing Bawa: "I loved everything about it."

July 22 2010 - Sonia's Movie & Book Review Blog: "I couldn't put the book down."

May 31 2010 - Minneapolis Star Tribune: "A gateway to the structure and beauty of language."

March 25 2010 - The Huffington Post: "Why the Elegance of the Hedgehog Is For Grownups"

February 12 2010 - The Daily Athenaeum: "The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a truly lovely and tragic story. It is an appropriate Valentine’s Day tearjerker but really a quick, enjoyable read for any time."

January 15 2010 - Bookslut: "A sarcastic, meaningful, cathartic book..."

October 20 2009 - Examine Children’s Books-Two recent novels by foreign writers capture the interior monologues of children and intertwine them with those of adult voices.

July 18 2009 - Studio Online: "Barbery’s book is remarkable for the wide range of people who have found inspiration, encouragement, strength and solace from the wisdom expressed by its two main characters."

May 30 2009 - Bookstore People: "I found The Elegance of the Hedgehog the best book I’ve read in years."

May 30 2009 - LaNew-Yorkaise: "Every now and then a book comes along that is so off the beaten path, that so wholly and charmingly occupies its own space, that the world can’t help but stop and take notice."

May 12 2009 - Haaretz: "Barbery herself was astonished by the reception her novel received."

May 07 2009 - The Daily Beast: "Hedgehog is really an international book, focused as it is on universal topics of childhood, philosophy, love, and art."

April 15 2009 - Bookstore People: "I fell in love with The Elegance of the Hedgehog on the first page after I looked up "eructation."

January 01 2009 - Toronto Star: "This fable of 'love, friendship and the beauty of Art' not only gives innocence a voice, but also shows what a powerful novel can do: transport, educate and, ultimately, console."

December 22 2008 - NPR's 'Day To Day': "Renee and Paloma's narrations are delightfully colorful, idealistic and witty."

November 11 2008 - Wall Street Journal: "A beautiful story with a large cast of fascinating, complicated characters whose behavior is delightfully unpredictable."

November 01 2008 - Books.Gather: "The slow reveal of these three characters and their friendship is like the blooming of a beautiful flower. The writing is lovely, at times even heartbreaking."

October 29 2008 - The Mindful Bard: "Authentic, original, and delightful."

October 27 2008 - Globe and Mail: "Coincidence abounds in The Elegance of the Hedgehog. The dual protagonists, full of charm, profundity and humour, endear in equal measures."

October 19 2008 - Christian Science Monitor: "'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' reminded me of 'Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont,' with its sense of renewal near the end of a life and a celebration of the beauty of small moments."

October 13 2008 - The New Yorker: "two autodidacts share an allergy to grammatical errors . . . and a love of tea and moments of ineffable beauty."

September 28 2008 - The Boston Globe: "Astute social satire and abstruse German philosophy are rarely found together, but here they are in this ingenious work of fiction."

September 28 2008 - The Week: "tender, mildly satirical, and most absorbing when waxing philosophical."

September 14 2008 - Washington Post: "Two characters provide the double narrative of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and you will -- this is going to sound corny -- fall in love with both."

September 12 2008 - New York Observer: "The dual narratives complement one other like the summer pairing of ripe strawberries and refreshing rosé."

September 10 2008 - Los Angeles Times: "'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' is a high-wire performance; its characters teeter on the surreal edge of normalcy. Their efforts to conceal their true natures, the pressures of the solitary mind, make the book hum."

September 07 2008 - Chicago Sun-Times: "This story, like all great tales, will break your heart, but it will also make you realize—or remember—that sometimes the pain is worth it."

September 07 2008 - New York Times: "Both [of the book's protagonists] create eloquent little essays on time, beauty and the meaning of life, Renée with erudition and Paloma with adolescent brio."

September 06 2008 - Amazon Readers Reviews: A collection of reader responses from Amazon.com

September 05 2008 - Wading Through Treacle: "a beautiful piece of work: erudite, laugh-out-loud humorous and tragic by turns. It can’t have been easy for Alison Anderson to capture in English the sophistication of Muriel Barbery’s writing, but she’s made a fine job of it."

September 05 2008 - Betsy Burton reviews the Hedgehog for KUER public radio, Utah (mp3)

September 03 2008 - Washington Post picks the Hedgehog as one of its notable fall books.

September 02 2008 - Time: "Wins over its fans with a life-affirming message...and Barbery's frequently wicked sense of humor."

August 26 2008 - Vogue: "A new book that plumbs the astonishing ways private lives and guarded secrets can come tumbling – for better or worse – into the open."

August 24 2008 - Time Out New York: "It’s not beauty that provides a reason for living, but the constant search for it."

August 23 2008 - Barnes & Noble Review: "Barbery has written an inspiring and heartwarming tale."

July 01 2008 - Kirkus Reviews: "With its refined taste and political perspective, this is an elegant, light-spirited and very European adult fable."

June 25 2008 - Nouvelle Philosophe: Interview with Muriel Barbery

May 19 2008 - Publishers Weekly: "By turns very funny (particularly in Paloma's sections) and heartbreaking . . . [Barbery's] simple plot and sudden denouement add up to a great deal more than the sum of their parts."

May 12 2008 - Me and My Big Mouth: "as sparky, witty and engaging as the central character it plays host to. It is full of quotable lines . . . and, whilst I doubt it will sell a million over here, it bloody well deserves to."

February 22 2008 - Foreign Reviews: A Selection of Foreign Reviews from France, Germany, Italy, and UK

February 07 2008 - L'express (France): "The ultimate celebration of every person’s invisible part (Renée smells of cabbage soup but reads Husserl) constitutes one of the book’s operative factors."

October 16 2007 - Elle (Italy): "this second novel by Muriel Barbery, thirty-eight-year-old French author and professor of Philosophy, is among the most exhilarating and extraordinary novels in recent years."

October 02 2007 - Le Monde: "Fifty-five weeks after it release, Muriel Barbery’s novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog is still on all of the country’s bestseller lists..."

September 22 2007 - Repubblica (Italy): "The formula that made more than half a million readers in France fall in love with The Elegance of the Hedgehog has, among other ingredients: intelligent humor, fine sentiments, [and] an excellent literary and philosophical backdrop"