The Sweetest Dream
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
"[Lessing] is a pro, writing at the top of her powers, realistically, passionately, accessibly.... a stirring novel"—San Francisco Chronicle
Frances Lennox stands at her stove, bringing another feast to readiness before ladling it out to the youthful crew assembled around her hospitable table—her two sons and their friends, girlfriends, ex-friends and new friends fresh off the street. It's London in the 1960s and everything is being challenged and changed.
But what is being tolerated? Comrade Johnny delivers political tirades, then laps up the adolescent adulation before disappearing into the night to evade the clutches of his responsibilities. Johnny's mother funds all but finds she can embrace only one lost little girl—Sylvia, who leaves for a South African village dying of AIDS.
These are the people dreaming the Sixties into being and who, on the morning after, woke to find they were the ones taxed with cleaning up and making good.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Doris Lessing. (2009). The Sweetest Dream. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Doris Lessing. 2009. The Sweetest Dream. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Doris Lessing, The Sweetest Dream. HarperCollins, 2009.
MLA Citation (style guide)Doris Lessing. The Sweetest Dream. HarperCollins, 2009.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Anne Arundel County Public Library | 1 | 1 |
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/{822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/{822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780061760334
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B000FC13ZY
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780061760334
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780060937553
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Doris Lessing
- title
- The Sweetest Dream
- dateAdded
- 2016-05-02T14:35:48.663Z
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=51&titleID=10502
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Maryland's Digital Library (MD)
- id: 831
- sortTitle
- Sweetest Dream
- crossRefId
- 10502
- id
- 822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE
- starRating
- 3
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: TheSweetestDream_9780061760334_10502
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 619150
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780061760334
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 50
- type: Printing
- value: 50
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 1
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 03/17/2009
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-epub-adobe
- url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-410/0293-1/822/AD0/5E/SweetestDream.epub
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: TheSweetestDream_10502
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B000FC13ZY
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 03/17/2009
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-epub-adobe
- url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-410/0293-1/822/AD0/5E/SweetestDream.epub
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: TheSweetestDream_9780061760334_10502
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780061760334
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 03/17/2009
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-epub-adobe
- url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-410/0293-1/822/AD0/5E/SweetestDream.epub
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Lessing, Doris
- bioText:
Winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, Doris Lessing was one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of our time, the recipient of a host of international awards. She wrote more than thirty books—among them the novels Martha Quest, The Golden Notebook, and The Fifth Child. She died in 2013.
- name: Doris Lessing
- imprint
- HarperCollins e-books
- publishDate
- 2009-03-17T00:00:00-04:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- The Sweetest Dream
- fullDescription
"[Lessing] is a pro, writing at the top of her powers, realistically, passionately, accessibly.... a stirring novel"—San Francisco Chronicle
Frances Lennox stands at her stove, bringing another feast to readiness before ladling it out to the youthful crew assembled around her hospitable table—her two sons and their friends, girlfriends, ex-friends and new friends fresh off the street. It's London in the 1960s and everything is being challenged and changed.
But what is being tolerated? Comrade Johnny delivers political tirades, then laps up the adolescent adulation before disappearing into the night to evade the clutches of his responsibilities. Johnny's mother funds all but finds she can embrace only one lost little girl—Sylvia, who leaves for a South African village dying of AIDS.
These are the people dreaming the Sixties into being and who, on the morning after, woke to find they were the ones taxed with cleaning up and making good.
- reviews
- premium: False
- source: San Francisco Chronicle
- content:
"[Lessing] is a pro, writing at the top of powers, realistically, passionately, accessibly.... a stirring novel." — San Francisco Chronicle
"Lessing's sage, level gaze is everywhere bought to bear ... [THE SWEETEST DREAM] is solidly wrought, deeply felt." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Irresistibly alluring ... [THE SWEETEST DREAM is] one of Lessing's most generous works." — Book Magazine
"Lessing renders the spirit of an age as few writers can." — Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Wonderfully ripe characters ... grand-scale writing." — Entertainment Weekly
"[Lessing's] acute political and artistic awareness makes her vision of our time rich and almost always freshly perceptive." — The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
"A kind of a truth emerges ... as Lessing effortlessly captures what is a quintessential in each of her charming characters." — The Guardian [London]
"One of out greatest novelists." — Salon.com
"Lessing's most engrossing novel in many years." — London Times Literary Supplement
"This book brings with it a rare literary pleasure - the kind you might have in suddenly coming upon a long lost novel by George Elliot or Balzac ...The haunting brilliance of her characters whom one feels one knows better than one's friends, the passion of her ideas and vision remain unblemished." — The Independent (London)
"Anyone who regards THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK as one of the key books of the mid-20th century will find this disconcerting novel worth attention." — The Sunday Telegraph (London)
"A great story with a Dickensian cast of memorable characters." — Evening Standard
"[THE SWEETEST DREAM] is a beautifully made book." — Financial Times [London]
"In its critique of mass-produced thinking and the long-term personal cost of war, THE SWEETEST DREAM approaches a universal truth: both damage people's capacity to give and receive love." — The Observer (London)
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from January 21, 2002
In lieu of writing volume three of her autobiography ("because of possible hurt to vulnerable people"), the grand dame of English letters delves into the 1960s and beyond, where she left off in her second volume of memoirs, Walking in the Shade. The result is a shimmering, solidly wrought, deeply felt portrait of a divorced "earth" mother and her passel of teenage live-ins. Frances Lennox and her two adolescent sons, Andrew and Colin, and their motley friends have taken over the bottom floors of a rambling house in Hampstead, London. The house is owned by Frances's well-heeled German-born ex-mother-in-law, Julia, who tolerates Frances's slovenly presence out of guilt for past neglect and a shared aversion for Julia's son, Johnny Lennox, deadbeat dad and flamboyant, unregenerate Communist. Frances's first love is the theater, but she must support "the kids," and so she works as a journalist for a left-wing newspaper. Over the roiling years that begin with news of President Kennedy's assassination, a mutable assortment of young habitués gather around Frances's kitchen table, and Comrade Johnny makes cameo appearances, ever espousing Marxist propaganda to the rapt young dropouts. Johnny is a brilliantly galling character, who pushes both Julia and Frances to the brink of despair (and true affection for each other). Lessing clearly relishes the recalcitrant '60s, yet she follows her characters through the women's movement of the '70s and a lengthy final digression in '90s Africa. Lessing's sage, level gaze is everywhere brought to bear, though she occasionally falls into clucking, I-told-you-so hindsight, especially on the subject of the failed Communist dream. While the last section lacks the intimate presence of long-suffering Frances, the novel is weightily molded by Lessing's rich life experience and comes to a momentous conclusion. (Feb. 10)Forecast:A must for Lessing fans, this book carries echoes of much of her previous work, both novels and memoirs. New readers may well be attracted by her brisk, discerning view of the '60s and '70s.
- popularity
- 40
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L2BaQAAAOQCAAA1L/products/822ad05e-b8fb-4897-8af6-9f033fae3cfe/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 822ad05e-b8fb-4897-8af6-9f033fae3cfe
- starRating
- 3
- contentType
- Full-length Books
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/{822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/{822AD05E-B8FB-4897-8AF6-9F033FAE3CFE}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Fiction
- value: Literature
- publishDateText
- 03/17/2009
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780060937553
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
"[Lessing] is a pro, writing at the top of her powers, realistically, passionately, accessibly.... a stirring novel"—San Francisco Chronicle
Frances Lennox stands at her stove, bringing another feast to readiness before ladling it out to the youthful crew assembled around her hospitable table—her two sons and their friends, girlfriends, ex-friends and new friends fresh off the street. It's London in the 1960s and everything is being challenged and changed.
But what is being tolerated? Comrade Johnny delivers political tirades, then laps up the adolescent adulation before disappearing into the night to evade the clutches of his responsibilities. Johnny's mother funds all but finds she can embrace only one lost little girl—Sylvia, who leaves for a South African village dying of AIDS.
These are the people dreaming the Sixties into being and who, on the morning after, woke to find they were the ones taxed with cleaning up and...
- sortTitle
- Sweetest Dream
- crossRefId
- 10502
- publisher
- HarperCollins
