HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading...

Beloved (1987)

by Toni Morrison

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
22,915408165 (3.91)2 / 1181
Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is persistently haunted by the ghost of her dead baby girl.
all members
▾Members
▾Tags
▾LibraryThing Recommendations
▾Member recommendations
  1. 101
    Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (susanbooks)
  2. 51
    Cane by Jean Toomer (cammykitty)
    cammykitty: An often overlooked classic.
  3. 51
    Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (BookshelfMonstrosity)
  4. 41
    The Known World by Edward P. Jones (BookshelfMonstrosity)
  5. 20
    A Killing in This Town by Olympia Vernon (hyacinthony)
    hyacinthony: I was reminded by Morrison's poetic narrative voice at the end of part 2 of Vernon's narrative style. Both books convey a powerful and mysterious spiritual force embedded in the violence of post-slavery african american conditions.
  6. 20
    A Visitation of Spirits by Randall Kenan (lottpoet)
  7. 10
    Bailey's Cafe by Gloria Naylor (PrincessPaulina)
  8. 21
    Mojo: Conjure Stories by Nalo Hopkinson (cammykitty)
    cammykitty: This collection of short stories is nowhere near as dark as Beloved, but it's worth following these tales to the crossroads.
  9. 21
    The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (shaunie)
    shaunie: Morrison's masterpiece is a clear influence on Whitehead's book, and his is one of the very few I've read which bears comparison with it. In fact I'd go so far as to say it's also a masterpiece, a stunningly good read!
  10. 10
    Dessa Rose by Sherley A. Williams (susanbooks)
  11. 11
    Philida by André Brink (PghDragonMan)
    PghDragonMan: The true meaning of freedom, the price of freedom, cruel things people do in the name of love and cruel acts performed without love are the focus of these books.
  12. 22
    The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines (karmiel)
    karmiel: Both books include a strong woman who attempts to build her life as a free woman after escaping/exiting slavery.
  13. 11
    Family by J. California Cooper (Cecrow)
  14. 01
    Sap Rising by Christine Lincoln (edwinbcn)
▾Lists
» 149 more
1980s (6)
Ghosts (14)
AP Lit (43)
Reiny (7)
hopes (16)
100 (55)
▾Will you like it?
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

▾Conversations (About links)

» See also 1181 mentions

▾Member reviews
English (380)  Spanish (7)  French (5)  Italian (4)  Dutch (3)  German (2)  Swedish (2)  Czech (1)  Hebrew (1)  All languages (405)
date ▼ | votes
Showing 1-5 of 380 (next | show all)
This book is spectral. ( )
  bentoverbooks | May 1, 2024 |
I'd really like to write a thoughtful and intelligent review. I just can't. Toni Morrison's prose makes anything I type read like angry ducks, quacking. So I'm just going to write, If you are considering this book, be prepared to be shattered by its beauty and horror. Beloved is brilliant, gut-wrenching, hard work for a reader and it will enrich your mind and heart. ( )
  punkinmuffin | Apr 30, 2024 |
I finally read Toni Morrison's Pulitzer prize-winning novel, Beloved. I can't believe I never read this incredible novel. It was my October Banned Book read gifted to me by my daughter-in-law, and it is a novel that everyone should read. Taking place shortly after the Civil War, former slave Sethe and her daughter Denver live in Ohio and are haunted by spirit of Sethe's dead baby Beloved. No one in town will associate with them for reasons that become apparent. Another former slave Paul shows up to stay with Sethe and Denver, and soon a young woman appears who shakes up things in the household. Sethe is traumatized by her life as a slave, and Morrison shows the reader the horrors and dangers of treating people as less than human. It is brutal and eye-opening, and heartbreaking. This book should not be banned, it should be required reading. ( )
  bookchickdi | Mar 11, 2024 |
This is a great novel that portrays the trauma bestowed on black Americans before, during, and after the Civil War through the telling of a "haint" story of a family haunted by their dead baby. Multigenerational trauma is shown brilliantly, and Morrison does not pull any punches. This is a great book. ( )
  fuzzy_patters | Feb 26, 2024 |
I am not going to lie, I have been scared to read this book for a good long time. It exists enough in the culture that I was roughly familiar with what the central wound was at the heart of this book, and I was not ready to bear witness to that, nor to hold it in my own heart. But I have been very slowly making my way through Morrison's work and it was time.

Of course it was incredible. The kind of incredible that had me ready to fight every low rating review on goodreads. Of course no book is for everyone, so I had to let it go. Yes, this book is heartbreaking as advertised, but it is also important, magical, enthralling, painful, so incredibly human, and threaded through with hope. Still processing this one. ( )
  greeniezona | Feb 9, 2024 |
date ▼ | votes
Showing 1-5 of 380 (next | show all)
?
▾Published reviews
As a record of white brutality mitigated by rare acts of decency and compassion, and as a testament to the courageous lives of a tormented people, this novel is a milestone in the chronicling of the black experience in America. It is Morrison writing at the height of her considerable powers, and it should not be missed.
added by g33kgrrl | editPublishers Weekly (Aug 17, 1987)
 
Morrison traces the shifting shapes of suffering and mythic accommodations, through the shell of psychosis to the core of a victim's dark violence, with a lyrical insistence and a clear sense of the time when a beleaguered peoples' "only grace...was the grace they could imagine."
added by g33kgrrl | editKirkus Reviews, starred review (Aug 15, 1987)
 
▾Other authors

» Add other authors (20 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Morrison, Toni—primary authorall editionsconfirmed
Byatt, A. S.Introductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Dekker, BesselTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Natale, GiuseppeTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pfetsch, HelgaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Vink, NettieTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Whitfield, LynnNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
▾Series and work relationships

Is contained in

Has the adaptation

Is abridged in

Has as a study

Has as a commentary on the text

Has as a student's study guide

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Distinctions

Notable Lists

view history
▾Common Knowledge
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Beloved
Original title
Beloved
Alternative titles
Original publication date
1987
People/Characters
Sethe
Denver
Paul D
Beloved
Baby Suggs
Important places
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Kentucky, USA
Important events
Related movies
Beloved (1998 | IMDb)
Epigraph
I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. Romans 9:25
Dedication
Sixty Million
and more
First words
124 was spiteful.
Quotations
I will never run from another thing on this earth.
Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best things she was, was her children.
Being alive was the hard part.
Nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Please distinguish between this complete 1987 novel and any abridgement of the original Work. Thank you.
Publisher's editors
Gottlieb, Robert
Blurbers
Leonard, John
Atwood, Margaret
Original language
English
Canonical DDC/MDS
813.54
Canonical LCC
PS3563.O8749
▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (2)

▾Book descriptions
Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is persistently haunted by the ghost of her dead baby girl.
▾Library descriptions

No library descriptions found.

?
▾LibraryThing members' description
Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Amazon.com (direct)
Abebooks.com
Amazon Kindle (0 editions)
Audible (0 editions)
CD Audiobook (0 editions)
Project Gutenberg (0 editions)
Google Books — Loading...
WorldCat

Genres

Melvil Decimal System (DDC)

813.54Literature › English (North America) › American fiction › 20th Century › 1945-1999

LC Classification

PS3563.O8749Language and Literature › American literature › American literature › Individual authors › 1961-

Rating

Average: (3.91)
0.5 14
1 153
1.5 27
2 313
2.5 61
3 819
3.5 188
4 1555
4.5 195
5 1646

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 205,943,743 books! | Top bar: Always visible
Copyright LibraryThing and/or members of LibraryThing, authors, publishers, libraries, cover designers, Amazon, Bol, Bruna, etc.