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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
I think I can, I think I can . . . I can! Dec 23, 2009
By B&B Hostess
Wonderful insights into photography, art, science and their interrelationship. The author's wealth of knowledge of these subjects is vividly conveyed in explicit detail and with delightful imagery. Cora transports us back and forth in various episodes as she recounts her life experiences. We see the development of her character over a thirty five year period from a fragile "lost soul" to a well respected sculptor who has definitely learned from her previous mistakes. She seizes the opportunity of a second chance and bravely faces life; dares to trust, love, and to lead a life of fulfillment. Cora is a dedicated and loyal friend to Carey who was her inspiration, and fights to uphold his reputation. Along the way she becomes our friend, too, as we can't help but admire her sense of "true grit" as she overcomes life's obstacles and rises to the top.
An amazing first novel; I'm looking forward to the second!
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
The Art of Photographic Description Nov 19, 2009
By Penny Cyd Lazarus
Anyone who has had experience teaching, researching or practicing their field in the halls of academia will recognize the very real struggle that confront the characters in George Copes' Cora's Turn. Actually, anyone who has experienced professional jealousy, bureaucratic quagmire and entrenched, conservative thinking will immediately connect with Cora, a fledgling sculptor and Mike, a gifted photographer who have day jobs making photographs for science textbooks in the 1960s. This is a very ingeniously told story about friendship, creativity, and the polemic of art vs. science. I was most fascinated by the beautiful and exacting descriptions of film photography at a time, now, when just about all camera work has gone digital. Actually, when one realizes that this book is written without chapters, using only short descriptive paragraphs that switch suddenly between settings of Cora's first apartment, her woodshop at PhysEd and Mike's photographic studio across the hall, that something else is at work here then the normative, chapter driven narratives that we are so used to in fiction writing. Cora's Turn reads like a photographic album with each "snapshot" capturing a new moment in Cora's life. And like a good photo album, many of Cope's beautifully written images stay sketched in the imagination, even after the book is closed.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Enjoying "Cora" at Every Turn May 15, 2009
By Cynthia Arsenault
"Cynthia"
I was enthralled with "Cora's Turn." Cora is at once every woman and yet uniquely her own quirky, indomnitable self. Profoundly insecure and unsure after a rocky period, she takes a risk and gets reinvoled in the business of life with a gusto we cannot help but admire. Recounted in a stream of consciousness style, that spares the reader unecessary conversation, we are always in her head. However, through her intuitive recounting of events, we see the world from the vivid perspectives of the other significant characters as well. The novel setting for her story provides the reader at once with a wealth of intriguing background about science photography in the past, as well as the art of turning wood and creating art. Each page turned is a step into another adventure and a deeper understanding of Cora in a personal journey we are pleased to be part of with her. A great read!
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Science Meets Art in Cora's Turn Mar 20, 2009
By Katharine V. Widmer
Cora's Turn is a deeply affecting novel, full of empathetic characters as well as some who are mean-spirited and self-serving. Most of all, it's about Cora Gordon, a damaged woman who comes late in life to self-knowledge and whose enormous physical and psychological courage enable her finally to trust, to love, to create, and to live her life. Other characters grow and change as well despite the efforts of those who wish them ill. I found myself thinking about the novel all the time and wanting to know what was going to happen next. I liked the way Mr. Cope wove the attitudes of the 1960s about education and science into the plot. Those attitudes affect many of the novel's characters and many of them change as a result. Cora changes the most because she's able to apply what she learns and experiences to her own intellectual and spiritual growth. Like Mike, the gifted photographer with whom she works and who becomes her dearest friend, she best expresses herself through her art, which is sculpture. The blend of science and education, art and creativity fuses into a thought-provoking story about interesting, smart, and witty people. This lively novel is about science, ideas, art, and education. It's also about an engaging woman grappling with huge forces whose story you'll remember long after you finish this excellent first novel.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
What a friend we have in Cora Feb 23, 2009
By Wilton Buckley
George Cope's "Cora'a Turn" is a treasure. Cora with all of her strengths and frailties, became a friend...one that I was so pleased to meet and that I will miss. Her relationships with co-workers at PhysEd are ones that most of us can identify with from our own experiences and Cope's characters are all very real. What a pleasure to feel good after reading a novel...one that does not require murder and mayhem to tell a story or keep a reader's interest. Don't miss "Cora's Turn"!
Wilton Buckley County Cork, Ireland
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