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  • All Our Shimmering Skies

  • By: Trent Dalton
  • Narrated by: Ruby Rees
  • Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (1,234 ratings)

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All Our Shimmering Skies

By: Trent Dalton
Narrated by: Ruby Rees
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Publisher's Summary

The author of Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton returns with All Our Shimmering Skies - the best-selling, critically acclaimed novel destined to become another Australian classic.

"A glinting, big-hearted miracle of a book." (Richard Glover)

"A work of shimmering originality and energy, with extraordinary characters and a clever, thrilling plot...unputdownable." (Sydney Morning Herald)

Darwin, 1942, and as Japanese bombs rain down, motherless Molly Hook, the gravedigger's daughter, turns once again to the sky for guidance. She carries a stone heart inside a duffel bag next to the map that leads to Longcoat Bob, the deep-country sorcerer who put a curse on her family. By her side are the most unlikely travelling companions: Greta, a razor-tongued actress, and Yukio, a fallen Japanese fighter pilot. Run, Molly, run, says the daytime sky. Run to the vine forests. Run to northern Australia's wild and magical monsoon lands. Run to friendship. Run to love. Run. Because the graverobber's coming, Molly, and the night-time sky is coming with him. So run, Molly, run.

All Our Shimmering Skies is a story about gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth and the secrets we bury inside ourselves. It is an odyssey of true love and grave danger, of darkness and light, of bones and blue skies; a buoyant, beautiful and magical novel abrim with warmth, wit and wonder; and a love letter to Australia and the art of looking up.

"Dalton is an author of 19th-century expansiveness, one with a sense that intelligence, talent for characterisation and sheer narrative brio can still be the whole cloth of the writer's ambition...it is storytelling manna, fallen straight from the Territorian skies." (The Australian)

"Achingly beautiful and poetic in its melancholy, All Our Shimmering Skies is a majestic and riveting tale of curses and the true meaning of treasure." (Booklist, starred review)

"As Australian as outback red dirt and as universal as the sky young Molly Hook's journey takes place beneath, All Our Shimmering Skies is an open-hearted wonder, by turns heartbreaking and full of hope, no less than an instant classic." (Venero Armanno)

"Australia has a new literary hero. Molly Hook - part Cordelia, part Jo March, part Pippi Longstocking - pulls us into a story and a landscape that is mythic, beguiling and almost hallucinatory in its beauty. And instantly recognisable as our own." (Kristina Olsson)

"This is storytelling at its absolute purest, a truly courageous expression of longing, hope and love...against unimaginable odds." (Asher Keddie)

"All Our Shimmering Skies is the follow-up to Boy Swallows Universe we could have never imagined, but the one Dalton was destined to gift us. It's a story of heroes and villains, foxes and water buffalo, fighter planes and birds of prey, real magic and real love, epitaphs and aphorisms, lost treasure and lost life. It's a love letter to the nation. It's your favourite childhood adventure story dictated by Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman and William Shakespeare, with a score by Franz Liszt. It's dead serious. It's completely ridiculous. It's all of these things and more." (Booktopia)

©2020 Trent Dalton (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about All Our Shimmering Skies

Average Customer Ratings
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I really wish I could give 6 stars!

a true piece of fine art
magnificently written:exquisite beauty tied up with perfect narration

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  • Col
  • 08-10-2020

A fantastic travel partner!

A journey of faith across obstacles that try to harden a heart of a good one.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Stunning, breathtaking, outstanding!

Original and mesmerising with beautifully wrought characters and the Northern Australian landscape and people lovingly and respectfully depicted. So many unexpected turns and delightful and horrifying discoveries. Just read it!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

One of the best books I have ever read

This is an Australian fable that will stretch beyond our time to our children’s children for its beauty and depth of message told through earth and heart.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Over exuberant narrator

My issue is not so much the story but the audio narrative.

I had high hopes for it from reading reviews & I am wondering how different an experience it may have been if I was able to read it as opposed to listening.

There is so much effort put into building the characters. environment and atmosphere of the book by Dalton, that I feel ripped off at not having the space to build my own picture in my mind as I listen to the overly expressive narrative literally being yelled at me throughout the book.

I can feel the narrators passion and desire to do the book justice, however I feel she robs the listener of one of the fundamental joys of reading, the ability of turn the narrative into pictures in one's mind.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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All Our Shimmering Skies

I found this book thoroughly engaging. On a superficial level it was entertaining with excellent characterisation that brought the story to life. Dig a bit deeper and it was thought provoking about life connections with others and the world around us. I feel I may need to listen again to grasp it all. Thank you for a great listen.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Breathtaking!

Wow! Beautifully narrated! I could not stop listening to this incredibly crafted masterpiece of a story. Boy Swallows Universe was a tough act to follow, and Trent Dalton nailed it!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A wonderful tale

difficult to read in places due to the abuse, yet a shining tribute to resilience and love.
Molly Hook will enchant you and break your heart.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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This is a cracker!

If you like Aus Lit, this is for you. It’s as much of a ripper as Boy Swallows Universe but it is completely unique. A classic coming of age journey but in no way cliché. This one will not disappoint but inspire wonder, imagination and faith in humanity that there are still people who, in the worst of circumstances, can give their very best.

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    5 out of 5 stars

A great one to “Binge Listen” to.

Such a great listen! It made me laugh, it made me cry and I just had to “binge listen” to the whole thing. 😜 Everything was so good about this book, and the narrator, Ruby Rees was exceptional. Thank you.

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.