
Take What You Need
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Christina Delaine
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Idra Novey
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By:
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Idra Novey
A New York Times Notable Book of 2023
A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, L.A. Times, Boston Globe, NPR, The Guardian Author Pick, and Today
Longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award
Longlisted for 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize
“A heart-rending book, but also a beautiful celebration of ‘the glorious pleasure of erecting something new,’ be it a work of art or a human connection.”—The Wall Street Journal
From “one of the finest and bravest novelists at work today,” (Vulture) award-winning writer Idra Novey has conjured a novel of “astonishing and singular” honesty (Rumaan Alam) with two determined, unforgettable female voices.
Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who’s sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah’s urban life with her young family, she’s revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother’s hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition. But with Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind.
What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history. There’s also a young man now living in the house who played an unknown role in Jean’s last years and in her art.
With great verve and humor, Idra Novey zeros in on the joys and difficulty of family, the ease with which we let distance mute conflict, and the power we can draw from creative pursuits.
Take What You Need explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most with passionate and resonance, this novel illuminating can be built from what others have discarded—art, unexpected friendship, a new contentment of self. This is Idra Novey at her very best.
©2023 Idra Novey (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
The Boston Globe's "Best Books to Read in 2023"
Named One of the Best Fiction for Spring 2023 by The Wall Street Journal
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Oprah Daily, Vulture, Today.com, Elle, and Lit Hub
“[An] odd and beautiful novel about the ineffable impulse to make art, wedged into an exploration of what happens to towns and people left behind.”—Kristen Martin, NPR
"Idra Novey’s Take What You Need is a story about art and passion, about the people and places who forge us. This singular and astonishing novel probes one of the biggest questions of the day: In a moment of cultural and political fracture, how do we live with one another?"—Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
"Take What You Need is exhilarating, a major novel. I read it in a white heat. Idra Novey writes with ferocious intelligence about the impulse to make beauty in a country coming apart at the seams."—Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness and What Belongs to You
Editorial Review
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This is a good book.
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is it really Art?
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This audio version is especially phenomenal, and I highly recommend!
Great book. Phenomenal performances.
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Gorgeous and thought-provoking
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Intriguing short tale!
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insightful and thought-provoking
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Great Novel!!!!!!!!
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I have never heard such a gorgeous story, so brilliantly told…
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Love this book!
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The ending of this book, with all of the unknowns left unknown, was the perfect demonstration of our messy lives. I will definitely listen to this again.
And now I'm on to looking for more books written by Idra Novey, as well as books narrated by Christina Delaine. Thank you Ms Novey for enriching my life with this book!
Beautiful Story and Christina Delaine is genius.
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