Product Description

From the beloved bestselling author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Scribner, 1970), comes a single-volume edition of all five novels in The Ferret Chronicles—Air Ferrets Aloft, Rescue Ferrets at Sea, Writer Ferrets Chasing the Muse, Rancher Ferrets on the Range, and The Last War. These fables, originally published by Scribner, are action-packed tales about courage, sacrifice, heroism, creativity, and finding what matters most in life. Readers of all ages will delight in the adventures of Stormy, Monty, Budgeron, Shamrock, and Jasmine as they continue seeking "to fulfill their highest right" and try their best to help us humans too. Richard Bach is the author of Messiah’s Handbook (Hampton Roads,2004) as well as multiple bestsellers including Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions (Doubleday, 1977).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #221775 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781571744579
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Beginning in 2002 with Rescue Ferrets at Sea, Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull) served up a series of feathery adventure fables about a fantastical world populated by virtuous ferrets. Originally published by Scribner, the five books have been smartly condensed, repackaged, retitled and reshuffled into this stand-alone digest. The opening selection, "Shamrock," is a terrific introduction to the Ferret Chronicles, a story about a brave, inquisitive female detective named Shamrock Ferret, who uses her gift of psychometry (psychic recall) to unravel the mysterious celestial origins of the ferret population. "Budgeron and Danielle" (from Ferret Chronicle #3, Writer Ferrets Chasing the Muse) deftly commingles themes of love and humility and insider revelations about the publishing business in a soft-hearted love story featuring a golden-furred, sharply dressed, frustrated novelist and his supportive wife, a "pawdicurist." The remaining fables tackle issues of salvation amid treacherous open seawaters ("Bethany"), Montana ranching and star-crossed romance ("Cheyenne and Monty") and high-flying ferret pilots ("Stormy and Strobe"). Bach's ferrets live by a rigid code of "Courtesies" ("I claim for others the freedom to live as they wish, to think and believe as they will. I claim that freedom for myself"), and their enchanting, moralistic adventures, distilled here to their essence, pack a big punch. (Nov.)
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Customer Reviews

Uplifting bedtime reading
This Hampton Roads reprint is an anthology of five small books written from the viewpoints of five sets of ferrets. Bringing these creatures' accounts under the roof of one book makes perfect sense here, because this really is one story. Furthermore, even as a sum of five books, Curious Lives is only 371 pages long.
This book is best read aloud at bedtime with your kids, spouse or lover. Its very nature and purpose entices the reader into a magical time zone to cuddle vicariously in the warmth of being cloaked in glistening soft fur.
It is undeniably wholesome; uplifting and inspiring without being sappy or preachy; poetic without being narcissistically grandiloquent. Though the ferret characters are endearing and tender, the author never succumbs to a facile cutesiness in his storytelling. Disney Films, Steven Spielberg and other purveyors of sentimental children's fare stand to learn a lot from Bach's honest, lucid story-telling and genuine wonderment at the deceptively simple things in life.
This particular reviewer had an unusually easy time suspending disbelief in order to embrace these ferrets' curiosity, love of the moment, psychologically realistic musings, and joyful message. This is saying a lot, given this reviewer's customary tone-deafness for other people's fantasy, hard-boiled cynicism toward magical thinking, suspiciousness of stories with a message, and difficulty tracking most visual descriptions.
I'd recommend saving this treat for a "cold and stormy night", accompanied by a soulful basso continuo of distant train song. Envelop yourself and your rapt audience in fur, whiskers and sweet thoughts.

Action packed moralistic Chronicals
Years ago, when I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, I loved it and subsequently read the other books that Richard Bach wrote. It was exciting to me to find Bach's new book, a single volume of all five novels in the Ferret Chronicles, a world populated by admirable ferrets living by their code of ethics "The Courtesies". Some of the mottos that the ferrets live by are, the more ideas you have, the more shall you be given; you give who you are, the money follows - what you do with the money, there's a different test; we find our happiness only when we follow what we most love in all the world.
The chronicles are action packed tales about creativity, heroism, courage, and living a life for all to benefit.

touching and sweet
This is a truly sweet and touching collection of stories about love, good conduct, trust, and living fully. One of the main themes is following your "highest right" and basing your actions on this ideal. In short, these stories are excellent entertainment and also provide good food for thought.