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    Cold Sassy Tree
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    Cold Sassy Tree
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    Cold Sassy Tree
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Cold Sassy Tree

    Written by Olive Ann Burns

    Narrated by Richard Thomas

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies would make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpson-a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee! On that day, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy's adventures began and an unimpeachably pious, deliciously irreverent town came to life. Not since To Kill A Mockingbird has a novel so deftly captured the subtle crosscurrents of small-town Southern life. Olive Ann Burns classic bestseller brings to vivid life an era that will never exist again, exploring timeless issues of love, death, coming of age, and the ties that bind families and generations.


    From the Trade Paperback edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 5, 2000
    ISBN9780553750393
    Author

    Olive Ann Burns

    Olive Ann Burns was born in 1924 on a farm in Banks County, Georgia, and went to school in nearby Commerce, which was the model for Cold Sassy. She attended Mercer University in Macon, Georgia; received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and for ten years was on the Sunday magazine staff of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. She turned to fiction writing as a respite during treatment for cancer. She completed Cold Sassy Tree and a partial manuscript for its sequel, Leaving Cold Sassy, before her death in 1990.

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    Reviews for Cold Sassy Tree

    4/5

    1,076 ratings40 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Digital Audiobook performed by Grover Gardner Thirteen-year-old Will Tweedy narrates Burns’ historical novel which takes place in the small Georgia town of Cold Sassy Tree circa 1906. It starts when his grandfather, E Rucker Blakeslee elopes with Miss Love Simpson. It’s a scandal, given that Blakeslee’s wife was buried just three weeks prior, that Miss Simpson is only half Blakeslee’s age, and even worse, Love is a Yankee!Oh ,what a treat this novel is! The characters are richly drawn, and cover the gamut of personalities. I was completely engaged in the story from beginning to end, laughing aloud several times as I watched the residents engage in gossip and speculation. Change is a constant theme … from the personal relationships to the introduction of automobiles, the citizens of Cold Sassy Tree manage to adjust, sometimes with grace and other times with more than a little consternation. Will is a wonderful observer with the curiosity of a young boy, especially when it comes to relationships between male and female adults. I loved the pranks he played and the tall tales he wove. And was touched by the tenderness of his first love. Grover Gardner does a marvelous job performing the audio. He has a lot of characters to interpret and does a great job of Will Tweedy and Grandpa Blakeslee. He even does an acceptable rendition of the female voices.
    • 1/5
      I could not finish this book. I forced myself to keep reading/skimming until I got to chapter 17. One of the ladies at my book club said that if I liked "Gone With the Wind," I would enjoy this book. Umm. No. Sadly, this is not the case. You know that scene in Gone With the Wind where the city of Atlanta is burning down? I wish someone would toss this book in the fire too...

    • 3/5
      This story is told through the eyes of Will Tweedy who is a fourteen year old boy. It is mostly about his relationship with his grandfather who after only two weeks of widowhood elopes with a woman much younger than he is. It takes place in a small town in the South in 1906. It is kind of a sweet love story but a bit slow. Maybe slow is the point as southern living is suppose to be at a much slower pace than up North. I liked the story well enough and the characters were likeable. I just saw that there is a sequel but doubt I will read it.
    • 4/5
      Summer reading at its finest and one wonderful portrayal of small town Southern life, circa 1906 that I have read to date. The characters are full of life and Will Tweedy is the perfect voice of a 14-year-old boy trying to make sense of all the craziness happening around him. The story presents a number of small-town biases that would make for wonderful discussions in a book group setting: the differences between town and mill-town folk (mill-town folks being the ones who did grueling manual labour in the cotton mills); North versus South points of view on everything from celebrating Independence Day to a woman's place in society. Through all the family bickering, moral posturing and other social machinations of the Cold Sassy folk, Will Tweedy's coming-of-age story is a story filled with heart, and had me laughing and shacking my head at some of his "boys will be boys" pranks, all the while exploring topics of love, death and religion.A perfect summer read, even if it may come across as being a bit dated for some readers.
    • 5/5
      rabck from DukeFan86; recommendation from my southern sister and oh, so good. Set in 1906, in fictional town Cold Sassy Georgia, and told from the point of view of 14 yo Will Tweety, who is the grandson of a shop-owner, the story deals with race, prejudice, and the life of a small town. Grandpa Blakesley sets the town on it's ear, when 3 weeks after Grandma's death, he marries the shop's milliner, Miss Love, 30 years his junior, on the same day that Will Tweety, caught on a train trestle, is nearly run over by the train. Miss Love convinces Grandpa Blakesly to become one of the first car dealers in the town, while Will doesn't want the inheritance of a shop - he wants to become a farmer. Lovely story.
    • 4/5
      I love this book...
    • 5/5
      It has been quit a while since I read this book, but Olivia Ann Burns made enough of an impression on me in my early reading to seek out her works to date. Her sensitive, ever humorous, and inciteful tact in writing about my beloved South, reaffirms my own affection for the South - characters, red clay, warts, quirks, the never-ending tall-tales, escapades of freckled-faced kids & whiskered octogenarians! She paints vivid portraits of her charcters and theirs homes and towns. You can hear their words flow off the page, but maintain a tight grip on that book - you are going to have quite a few belly laughs, maybe a brief tear or two, mostly smiles of visiting a place called a fun place to call home.
    • 3/5
      So slow moving. Will Teeedy a young teenager and "town" boy lives in a small Georgia town in the early 1900's. His Grandpa, with whom he had a warm relationship, was a straight speaking store owner who married a second time shortly after his wife died...to a young and fun lady. This book is a great capture of real life at the time, but I have little desire to read the other books in the series.
    • 5/5
      This was a re-read for me. However, since I first, unknowingly, listened to an abridged audio version, I got quite a bit extra from this reading!! And I loved it! I definitely want to read the sequel :)
    • 5/5
      Listening to this reminded me of my grandpa from South Carolina, who died a couple of years ago, even though this book took place in a small town in Georgia. Listening to the language really took me back and made me all nostalgic. Anyway, I think it's a wonderful coming-of-age story from a teenage boy's point of view, with characters I believed were real and events that were both funny and true-to-life.
    • 4/5
      I read this for the work book club - and I only found it so-so. The writing was too rambly, the kid too innocent, while the town folk felt real, the adult family members, while real, felt a bit subdued, as if talking down to a kid.Which brings me back to Will Tweedy. He is 14 going on ten in this book. A kid growing up in the deep south should know considerably more about life than he did - the pranks were incredibly juvenile, the crush of his life, Lightfoot - felt like something an 11 or 12 year old kid would have, even in this time period. Also, he doesn't question the circumstances of the people around him, such as the lint-heads or the African American folk. And that is the biggest problem in this book. Will doesn't really have personality. He has the stereotypes typical about boys (likes fishing, a bit mischievous) but that is all there is of him.As for the language, it can be difficult at times if you are not used to the dialect. Also, a lot of characters are mentioned and trying to figure out how everybody relates to each other can be a challenge.It isn't to say this is a bad book - its well written, characters are revealed through the plot. This book is cozy, without much of a story. And that where the book fails. I think its a great book if you want to read about small town early 20th century southern life, but if you want something a bit more deep, skip this book.
    • 5/5
      Listened to from March 01 to 13, 2012I love this book. I love Love Simpson & I absolutely adore E. Rucker Blakeslee. I've read it twice & now listened to it. It just doesn't get old.One thing I've learned: I block out the sad endings of books I like. This was first noticed when I reread The Great Gatsby...and now with Cold Sassy Tree it's happened again. As I was listening to the last half hour, I was driving with tears streaming down my face.
    • 5/5
      This was a great read, kind of like Fanny Flagg meets Mark Twain.
    • 4/5
      A wonderful story spoken mainly through a boy named Will Wheedy. The story is set in the early part of the 1900's in Georgia. His grandfather shocks the entire town and embarasses his grown children by remarrying to a much younger woman with a colorful past. Delightful.
    • 5/5
      Blurbs for the book claimed it was "better than To Kill a Mockingbird and reminiscent of Alice Walker. I can't agree with either remark, although I did love this book and rated it a five. But not all fives are created equal. I recently reread To Kill a Mockingbird and that one is a classic on a whole other level. The only Alice Walker novel I've read is The Color Purple. Some aspects of how Burns conveyed the Southern American dialect was reminiscent, as was the iconoclastic spirituality, although I don't feel it's as intense or original as Walker's epistolary novel. The story is told by Will Tweedy, who eight years later looks back to 1906 when he was fourteen years old and his grandfather, Enoch Rucker Blakeslee scandalized the small town of Cold Sassy, Georgia by eloping with Miss Love Simpson--a woman young enough to be his daughter. Only three weeks after his wife died. And she's a suffragette. And a Yankee! Will may be the narrator, but his grandfather definitely is the heart of this tale. A Civil War veteran and owner of the town general store he's definitely one of the more memorable fictional characters I've encountered. And the young naive first person voice of Will and the setting of a small Southern town might remind some of Scout of To Kill a Mockingbird. Some blurbers even compared him to Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The books mentioned above though all have pretty sharp social critiques, especially concerning racism. In Cold Sassy Tree there's really only one pointed passage on racial matters--coming from Miss Simpson, the one outsider. This isn't concerned with such weighty matters but is a rather gentle, nostalgic coming of age tale and mostly light in tone despite one dark secret. It has more than its share of humor, the funniest scenes I thought dealing with the first automobiles ever to hit Cold Sassy. Even if it's not a deathless classic, it's still an engrossing, charming read with unforgettable characters and a great portrait of its time and place.
    • 5/5
      Set in what is now, Commerce, Ga. A coming of age story about a young man and his relationship with his Grandfather and family...Love this book.
    • 5/5
      To start off with- this is not my preferred genre for novels. With that out of the way - I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It has the qualities of a classic and I'm sure will endure as such.This novel deal with many different topics and does so with a bit of humor, truth-isms, emotions and gossip. It has a great pace and the story just draws the reader is as it progresses. There are aspects of love, loss, maturity, class and race differences and the nuances of a small town. I heartily recommend this one if you enjoy a historical fiction of southern life...and even if you don't. I felt this book really does have something for everyone and you will find a character to relate to - I know I did.
    • 3/5
      This book starts out in 1906 in a very rural, southern town in Georgia. It is a portrait of small town life that I was not anxious to read but found myself enjoying greatly. It is told by Will a 14 year old and it is mostly of his family and the ever gossiping, judgemental folks of "Cold Sassy Tree" and how Will's grandpa managed to live in Cold Sassy.
    • 3/5
      An okay read, just didn't see the point to it. I kept waiting for something definitive to happen, and then I was done with the book.
    • 4/5
      Cold Sassy is a small town in Georgia. The story is set in 1906. Bible-thumping and segregation are a given. The story is told in Will's voice. Will is 14, a hard-worker, loves his family (except for Aunt Loma and especially his grandparents). His Granny has just died, and things are grim. The family has to be in mourning for a year. Grandpa Blakeslee throws that tradition into the collective face of the townspeople and elopes with the milliner at his store, Love Simpson, three weeks after his wife's death. This is a story of small-town Southern life, seemingly simple but there is always more than meets the eye. The voices are authentic, with original characters, and Will is a charming and honest narrarator. Very enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      This is often described as a coming of age novel, and is billed as young adult lit. It is actually a very sensitively written story set in Cold Sassy Georgia in 1906 and 1907. It is as appealing to adults as to highschoolers. The main character E. Rucker Blakesly scandalizes the town by marrying the milliner who works in his general store a scant three weeks after burying his first wife Miss Mattie Lou. Told from the viewpoint of his grandson, Will Tweedy, we see how the young second wife Love Simpson is shunned by Blakesly's two grown daughters Looma and Mary Willis, and how young Will is taken into Love's confidence when she claims that she is only a housekeeper to his grandpa, and it is a marriage in name only.As time passes, we see southern culture at its best and worst. The townsfolk are given ample opportunity for greatness and meanness. Grandpa opens a car dealership in addition to his general store, Will Tweedy learns to drive, and discovers he is attracted to girls. Olive Ann Burns gives us a loving picture of small town life, and leads us through an exquisite story of love, forgiveness and hope.
    • 3/5
      Will Tweedy was 14 years old and living in Cold Sassy, Georgia, in the summer of 1906 when his grandpa came home one day to announce he was marrying a woman half his age, not three weeks after the death of his first wife, Will's grandmother. The town, of course, is scandalized, and continues to be so as the story wears on. This is more of a "slice of life" depiction than much of a story - the author starts with a setting (the town of Cold Sassy) and a premise (Grandpa's new bride), and meanders through clever little anecdotes and asides for a while until the author decides it's time to end the story and starts killing off characters. This is not a bad story, just a fairly standard one. I don't have very strong feelings about it either way. The constant backcountry dialect got kind of old, but I feel that way about all books narrated in dialect so that's not exactly serious criticism. On the other hand, I could hear all the characters in my head with no problem. In the end, if you like this era of historical fiction, you'll enjoy the feeling of living in Cold Sassy; if you prefer more plot-driven stories where everything happens for a reason, you might want to skip this one.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable from what I remember from my freshman year of high school.
    • 3/5
      Good southern literature.
    • 4/5
      This is a beautifully written book. The story is moving and sensitive. The characters are well-developed and you care about them. The plot is interesting and the pace is quick without being rushed. This book is well-worth your time.
    • 5/5
      The writing style is reminiscent of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and it is a sheer delight to read. Yes, it is written in dialect, exactly the way people talked in that place and time, but it was familiar to my tongue and ear and I really enjoyed it. It was almost like listening to my grandmother speak again. I'm really glad I stumbled across it at booksfree because I had all but forgotten about it and it was more than worth a re-visit. It gets a full five stars because it's a good'n.
    • 5/5
      It took me a while to finally get around to this. I bought it at a library book sale after a complete stranger pointed it out and recommended it to me.The narrator, Will Tweedy, is 8 kinds of adorable. He somehow keeps the story light-hearted and fun even though there are several deaths throughout the story. The grandfather is also quite awesome, as is Miss Love. In fact, the little town itself seems to be a character in its own right, which is good since the novel is named after it.Books like this have made me more and more fond of first-person point-of-view. When it's done only so-so, to me it is worse even than a so-so third-person p.o.v. book; but when 1st person is done well, such as in this book, it can pull you into a character and story more than its 3rd-person counterpart. That, at least, has been my experience.If you like stories of Southern charm, small-town quirks, and pre-WW1 life, you'll probably enjoy this book.
    • 5/5
      absolutely love this book. One of my top 10.
    • 5/5
      One of the few books that I have read twice. Get ready to cry. 15 year old boy tells about his grandpa's life with his second wife. It is excellent.
    • 4/5
      An enjoyable read of small southern town lives. The culture of love and respect that was portrayed is sadly neglected in this day and age.