{"description": {"type": "/type/text", "value": "On a brisk autumn day, a thirteen-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: His father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America\u2013-and into another realm.\r\n\r\nOne of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, <i>The Talisman </i>is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother\u2019s life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. <i>Let the quest begin</i>. . . .\r\n(back cover)"}, "title": "The Talisman", "authors": [{"key": "/authors/OL19981A"}, {"key": "/authors/OL32650A"}], "publish_date": "2001-08", "physical_format": "Mass Market Paperback", "weight": "12 ounces", "languages": [{"key": "/languages/eng"}], "publishers": ["Ballantine Books"], "first_sentence": "On September 15th, 1981, a boy named Jack Sawyer stood where the water and land come together, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking out at the steady Atlantic.", "type": {"key": "/type/edition"}, "subjects": ["Horror - General", "Fiction", "Fiction - Horror", "Fiction / Horror"], "physical_dimensions": "6.8 x 4.2 x 1.4 inches", "isbn_10": ["0345444884"], "isbn_13": ["9780345444882"], "ocaid": "talisman00step", "publish_places": ["New York"], "copyright_date": "2001", "edition_name": "First Ballantine Books edition (7)", "covers": [14651632], "source_records": ["amazon:0345444884"], "key": "/books/OL9527447M", "number_of_pages": 768, "works": [{"key": "/works/OL81599W"}], "latest_revision": 25, "revision": 25, "created": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2008-04-30T09:38:13.731961"}, "last_modified": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2025-12-15T10:41:36.873684"}}