JOAN THOMAS's debut novel, Reading By Lightning (2008), won the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book (Canada/Caribbean) and the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. Curiosity, her second novel, was also longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Joan has worked as a teacher, group-home worker, editor, and as the Writing and Publishing consultant at the Manitoba Arts Council. She was a books columnist and longtime contributing reviewer for the Globe and Mail, and in 1996 won a National Magazine Award (Silver) for Creative Non-Fiction. Joan's other works include The Opening Sky and Five Wives. Joan lives in Winnipeg. Visit her website at www.joanthomas.ca.
"Meticulous and deeply affecting. The traps of poverty and class,
calcified notions of women's place in science and society, fall
away to reveal the hidden life below: the human mind and heart
excavated with delicate and devastating skill." -Marina Endicott,
author of Good to a Fault
"Curiosity is a delight. Set with marvels and rueful comedy,
it's a warmly intelligent feat of historical sympathy. Mary Anning
of Lyme Regis, with her dead-reckoning gaze, moves through these
pages like a muddy-booted angel." -Greg Hollingshead, author of
Bedlam
"Rich. . . . [Thomas] practically burrows into the
characters. Hers is magnificent prose that appeals to all the
senses without grandiloquence. Equally important, Thomas handles
the doctrinal debate raised by the then-budding field of geology
with [great] subtlety and nuance." -The Toronto Star
"Right from its powerful opening, the novel buffets readers
with the inescapable momentum of waves against the Dorset cliffs. .
. . Curiosity is without question the best novel this reader
has come across in the past year. . . . Lush. . . . Thomas draws
[her] characters with such depth, power, and heart tha they remain
with the reader long after the novel's covers are closed."
-Quill & Quire (starred review)
"Thomas handles beautifully the class-afflicted nuances of a doomed
love story." -More magazine
"A brilliant, soulful, multi-layered novel. . . . We are drenched
in all the sights, sounds and smells of the era [and] become privy
to the ecstasy and the agony of the doomed love affair between the
two main characters. . . . Lush prose, compelling narrative and
vivid characters [make] this one of the best books of the spring
publishing season." -Ottawa Citizen
"A precise reconstruction of the social and intellectual
world of early 19th-century England. . . .[Thomas's] research gives
the characters depth [and] provides Mary with a delightfully
distinctive voice. . . . A beautifully wrought . . . work of
literary art." -Winnipeg Free Press
"Extraordinary. . . . A timeless story, and an unforgettable one."
-Edmonton Journal
"Gripping. . . . Mary Anning as portrayed by Joan Thomas
stands in her own right as a memorable figure, vulnerable and
indomitable at the same time." -National Post
"[Curiosity] explores the exquisite fragility of a love
story that turns upon the lovers' unblinking curiosity before the
metaphysical change their work uncovers. . . . A beautiful,
erudite, and deeply pleasurable work." -The Walrus
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