LoveReading Says
Winner of Best Read of the Year and the Literary Fiction Award at the British Book Awards 2005. David Mitchell entices his readers on to a rollercoaster, and at first they wonder if they want to get off. Then - at least in my case - they can't bear the journey to end. Like Scheherazade, and like serialised Victorian novels and modern soaps, he ends his episodes on cliffhangers and missed heartbeats. But unlike these, he starts his next tale in another place, in another time, in another vocabulary, and expects us to go through it all again. Trust the tale. He reaches a cumulative ending of all of them, and then finishes them all individually, giving a complete narrative pleasure that is rare. A 2011 World Book Night selection.
Our Editorial Guru, Sarah Broadhurst, has suggested others book and authors that would be perfect for you to read next or to pass on the recommendation - so your gift will keep on giving enjoyment. Her selections for this title are: Neal Stephenson, Iain Banks, Simon Ings.
Sarah Broadhurst
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Cloud Atlas Synopsis
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER A timeless, structure-bending classic that explores how actions of individual lives impact the past, present and future-from a postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in fiction
One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. The novel careens, with dazzling virtuosity, to Belgium in 1931, to the West Coast in the 1970s, to an inglorious present-day England, to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok, and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.
But the story doesn't end even there. The novel boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, David Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.
As wild as a video game, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.
About This Edition
ISBN: |
9780812984415 |
Publication date: |
2nd October 2012 |
Author: |
David Mitchell |
Publisher: |
Random House Trade Paperbacks an imprint of Random House Publishing Group |
Format: |
Paperback |
Pagination: |
514 pages |
Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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Other Genres: |
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Recommendations: |
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