Close cookie details

This site uses cookies. Learn more about cookies.

OverDrive would like to use cookies to store information on your computer to improve your user experience at our Website. One of the cookies we use is critical for certain aspects of the site to operate and has already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but this could affect certain features or services of the site. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, click here to see our Privacy Policy.

If you do not wish to continue, please click here to exit this site.

Hide notification

  Main Nav
Big Fish
Cover of Big Fish
Big Fish
Borrow Borrow
** A MAJOR TIM BURTON FILM starring Ewan Mcgregor and Jessica Lange **
** COMING SOON AS A MUSICAL starring Kelsey Grammer **

Do you ever really know your father?
Like many sons, William Bloom never really knew his father. Edward told him stories too incredible to believe about his exploits as a younger man, but any attempt to find out serious truths have been met with laughter and brush-offs. And that never mattered. But now Edward is dying, suddenly it matters a great deal.
So William sets out to tell his father's story, as he imagines it. He tames a giant, is dragged by an enormous fish through a lake and escapes a purgatory of lost dreams. Through legends and myths, William makes Edward into a true Big Fish.
The much beloved book by Daniel Wallace is soon to be a Christmas musical at The Other Palace in London.
Praise for Big Fish:

'Both comic and poignant' New York Times
'An audacious, highly original debut novel. . . An imaginative, and moving, record of a son's love for a charming, unknowable father' Kirkus Reviews
'Refreshing, original. . . Wallace mixes the mundane and the mythical. His chapters have the transformative quality of fable and fairy tale' Publishers Weekly, starred review
** A MAJOR TIM BURTON FILM starring Ewan Mcgregor and Jessica Lange **
** COMING SOON AS A MUSICAL starring Kelsey Grammer **

Do you ever really know your father?
Like many sons, William Bloom never really knew his father. Edward told him stories too incredible to believe about his exploits as a younger man, but any attempt to find out serious truths have been met with laughter and brush-offs. And that never mattered. But now Edward is dying, suddenly it matters a great deal.
So William sets out to tell his father's story, as he imagines it. He tames a giant, is dragged by an enormous fish through a lake and escapes a purgatory of lost dreams. Through legends and myths, William makes Edward into a true Big Fish.
The much beloved book by Daniel Wallace is soon to be a Christmas musical at The Other Palace in London.
Praise for Big Fish:

'Both comic and poignant' New York Times
'An audacious, highly original debut novel. . . An imaginative, and moving, record of a son's love for a charming, unknowable father' Kirkus Reviews
'Refreshing, original. . . Wallace mixes the mundane and the mythical. His chapters have the transformative quality of fable and fairy tale' Publishers Weekly, starred review
Available formats-
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB eBook
Subjects-
Languages:-
Copies-
  • Available:
    1
  • Library copies:
    1
Levels-
  • ATOS:
  • Lexile:
  • Interest Level:
  • Text Difficulty:


About the Author-
  • Daniel Wallace is the author of five novels. His first, Big Fish, was made into a motion picture of the same name by Tim Burton in 2003, and a musical version on Broadway in 2013. He is a contributing editor to Garden & Gun magazine and is the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he teaches and directs the Creative Writing Program. Visit his website at DanielWallace.org.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    Starred review from September 28, 1998
    "People mess things up, forget and remember all the wrong things. What's left is fiction," writes Wallace in his refreshing, original debut, which ignores the conventional retelling of the events and minutiae of a life and gets right to the poetry of a son's feelings for and memories of his father. William Bloom's father, Edward, is dying. He dies in fact in four different takes, all of which have William and his mother waiting outside a bedroom door as the family doctor tells them it's time to say their goodbyes. He intersperses the four takes with stories (all filtered through William's mind and voice) about the elusive Edward, who spent long periods of time on the road away from home and admitted once to his son that he had yearned to be a great man. The father and son deathbed conversations have son William playing earnest straight man, while his father is full of witticisms and jokes. In a plainspoken style dotted with transcendent passages, Wallace mixes the mundane and the mythical. His chapters have the transformative quality of fable and fairy tale, and the novel's roomy structure allows the mystery and lyricism of the story to coalesce. Agent, Joe Regal; author tour. (Oct.) FYI: Wallace is an illustrator who designs T-shirts, refrigerator magnets and greeting cards.

Title Information+
  • Publisher
    Simon & Schuster UK
  • OverDrive Read
    Release date:
  • EPUB eBook
    Release date:
Digital Rights Information+
  • Copyright Protection (DRM) required by the Publisher may be applied to this title to limit or prohibit printing or copying. File sharing or redistribution is prohibited. Your rights to access this material expire at the end of the lending period. Please see Important Notice about Copyrighted Materials for terms applicable to this content.

Status bar:

You've reached your checkout limit.

Visit your Checkouts page to manage your titles.

Close

You already have this title checked out.

Want to go to your Checkouts?

Close

Recommendation Limit Reached.

You've reached the maximum number of titles you can recommend at this time. You can recommend up to 0 titles every 0 day(s).

Close

Sign in to recommend this title.

Recommend your library consider adding this title to the Digital Collection.

Close

Enhanced Details

Close
Close

Limited availability

Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget.

is available for days.

Once playback starts, you have hours to view the title.

Close

Permissions

Close

The OverDrive Read format of this eBook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser. Learn more here.

Close

Holds

Total holds:


Close

Restricted

Some format options have been disabled. You may see additional download options outside of this network.

Close

MP3 audiobooks are only supported on macOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) through 10.14 (Mojave). Learn more about MP3 audiobook support on Macs.

Close

Please update to the latest version of the OverDrive app to stream videos.

Close

Device Compatibility Notice

The OverDrive app is required for this format on your current device.

Close

Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen

Close

You've reached your library's checkout limit for digital titles.

To make room for more checkouts, you may be able to return titles from your Checkouts page.

Close

Excessive Checkout Limit Reached.

There have been too many titles checked out and returned by your account within a short period of time.

Try again in several days. If you are still not able to check out titles after 7 days, please contact Support.

Close

You have already checked out this title. To access it, return to your Checkouts page.

Close

This title is not available for your card type. If you think this is an error contact support.

Close

An unexpected error has occurred.

If this problem persists, please contact support.

Close

Close

NOTE: Barnes and Noble® may change this list of devices at any time.

Close
Buy it now
and help our library WIN!
Big Fish
Big Fish
Daniel Wallace
Choose a retail partner below to buy this title for yourself.
A portion of this purchase goes to support your library.
Close
Close

There are no copies of this issue left to borrow. Please try to borrow this title again when a new issue is released.

Close
Barnes & Noble Sign In |   Sign In

You will be prompted to sign into your library account on the next page.

If this is your first time selecting “Send to NOOK,” you will then be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."

The first time you select “Send to NOOK,” you will be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."

You can read periodicals on any NOOK tablet or in the free NOOK reading app for iOS, Android or Windows 8.

Accept to ContinueCancel