Breath

When Loonie and Pikelet started to surf, they cycled from Angelus to the beach with their styrofoam boards, buffeted by the wind and, when they finally got to the sea, the waves. They couldn't help it: they were terrified; they were addicted. Among the local surfers, one guy stood out. He turned up alone, when the swell was highest, and left the rest of them for dead. Gradually Loonie and Pike got to know this loner, Sando, who took them under his wing. Half a lifetime later, Pike can't free himself from where the ride took him. Breath is Tim Winton at his finest: a beautiful, gripping, deeply moving novel about our need for excitement and to push ourselves to the limits; about the power of the sea; and how ordinary people live with tragedy.

About the Author :
Tim Winton is the acclaimed and award-winning Australian author of more than 30 books for adults and children, including two Booker Prize–shortlisted novels Dirt Music and The Riders. His work has been translated into more than 24 languages and adapted for film, television, stage and radio. He has won the Miles Franklin Award a record four times: for Shallows (1984), Cloudstreet (1992), Dirt Music (2002) and Breath (2009). The Turning also won the 2005 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction while Cloudstreet regularly appears in lists of Australia's best-loved novels. His latest novel is Juice (2024). Winton has been named as a National Living Treasure by the Australian National Trust and awarded the Centenary Medal by the Australian government for services to literature and the community. Winton was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2023 King's Birthday Honours for ‘distinguished service to literature as an author and novelist, to conservation, and to environmental advocacy’. Winton is patron of the Tim Winton Award for Young Writers sponsored by the City of Subiaco, Western Australia and is the patron of two environmental advocacy organisations: the Australian Marine Conservation Society and the Stop the Toad Foundation. He lives in Western Australia. Dan Wyllie is a highly regarded and well respected Australian actor who has worked extensively in theatre, television and film. His breakthrough role in the 1990 film Spotswood alongside Anthony Hopkins was followed by notable film performances in the hit comedy Muriel's Wedding opposite Toni Collette, Romper Stomper with Russell Crowe, Jane Campion's Holy Smoke, the Terrence Malick film The Thin Red Line, and PJ Hogan's Peter Pan. Dan's television performances include the award-winning series Love My Way which garnered him several award nominations and for which he won the TV Week Silver Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series in 2006. Some of Dan's other stand-out television performances include roles in Channel 9's Underbelly, Two Twisted produced by Bryan Brown, and the ABC series Bastard Boys and Curtin. He also played the lead role in ABC mini-series The Shark Net, an adaptation of the Robert Drewe memoir.

Review :
"Darkly exhilarating." "Tender, incisive, sometimes brutal and always moving coming-of-age novel." "Winton is pitch perfect in capturing (but not exploiting) adolescent angst, and he describes surfing and the sea so thrillingly that even non-swimmers will want to plunge right in." "Tim Winton's newest novel offers an irresistible taste of oceanic communion." "This slender book packs an emotional wallop... Winton is well-known in Australia and should be here." "Winton's latest novel is both a hymn to the beauty of flying on water and a sober assessment of the costs of losing one's balance, in every sense of the word." "This aptly titled novel knocks the breath out of the listener as it recounts a youth's daredevil surfing exploits, evoking the fragile balance between life and death. Paramedic Bruce Pike looks back in this coming-of-age story of his thrill-seeking youth in 1970s Australia. He and his friend, Loonie, meet a charismatic surfing legend named Sando, who mentors them in the science and art of surfing, and drives them to more and more reckless behavior. Dan Wyllie delivers an easily understandable Australian accent and shifts subtly between tentative teen and jaded adult. Wyllie's delivery of Winton's vivid descriptions is mesmerizing, and he ably conveys the image of breath as a metaphor throughout the story. This compelling novel may entice the listener to seek out the well-known Australian author's many other works." "The new novel from the twice "Booker" shortlisted author. Bruce Pike has always been forbidden to go down to the beach but when he meets Loonie, the local wild boy, he defies his parents and discovers the wild joys of surfing and an erotic current that he can't resist. An absorbing, powerful and deeply beautiful novel."