A Pigeon and a Boy

This book was wonderful! Mr. Shalev has refined the art of excellent character development, with characters who inspire real empathy. You laugh when they laugh, cry when they cry, and grieve when they do too. Even the descriptions of the cars and travel routes was so good it placed you right in the passenger seat (or the roof rack of "Behemoth", as the case may be!) It is a gripping tale about life in the emerging state... Read Full Review

When I first spotted the book on the shelves at one of the local bookstores, I stared at it for 2-minutes. It wasn't the glossy jacket that stood out, nor was it a particularly catchy title that made me want to buy the book. It was the author's name: Meir Shalev. An Israeli author's book being sold here? I could tell the author is an Israeli from the name. I picked the book out of curiosity and treated it as a window... Read Full Review

This is the kind of book you want to read slowly, to savour every word, and long for it not to finish. Meir Shalev's beautifully crafted book, with its flowing, evocative language, masterfully translated by Evan Fallenberg, consists of two ingeniously interwoven tales of people a generation apart, linked by places and events. One is a first person narrative of an adult tour-guide yearning for affection and a place he can consider... Read Full Review

All novels about Israel fascinate me. This one intrigued me because of the rhythm of each sentence, and therefore, kudos to the translator. The parallel stories intertwine and the narrative is not lost because of it, as in so many other novels using flashback technique. The ending was so poetic, so indicative of the lengths to which one must go to survive in a land that has a precarious topography, the joy of discovering love... Read Full Review

A masterpiece of two woven stories, the love story between two pigeon handlers in the period prior to Israel's War of Independence framed and intersected by that of a tour guide specializing in bird watching who learns the details of the tale from one of his guests. In this unlikely subject, the reader is treated to learning the habits and handling of homing pigeons that served as reliable means of communication during the... Read Full Review