A highly-acclaimed masterwork of fiction from Mircea Cărtărescu, author of Blinding: an existence (and eventually a cosmos) created by forking paths.<br /><br />Based on Cărtărescu’s own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist’s life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. One character asks another: when you rush into the burning building, will you save the newborn or the artwork? On a broad scale, the novel’s investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art.<br /><br />The novel is grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, including long lines for groceries, the absurdities of the education system, and the misery of family life. The text includes sequences in a tuberculosis sanatorium, an encounter with an anti-death protest movement, a society of dream investigators, and an extended visit to the minuscule world of dust mites living on a microscope slide.<br /><br />Combining fiction with autobiography and history― the scientists Nicolae Tesla and George Boole, for example, appear alongside the Voynich manuscript―Solenoid ruminates on the exchanges possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various, monstrous dimensions erupt within the Communist present.<b>From million-copy-bestselling author John Boyne, an inescapably gritty story about one young man whose direction in life takes a vastly different turn than what he expected.</b><br /><br />It’s the tabloid sensation of the two well-known footballers standing in the dock, charged with sexual assault, a series of vile text messages pointing towards their guilt. <br /><br />As the trial unfolds, Evan Keogh reflects on the events that have led him to this moment. Since leaving his island home,...<b>A private investigator is hired to look into a mysterious, high-profile death aboard the starship Halcyon in this new noir/science fiction fusion from the “mastersinger of space opera” (<i>The Times</i>) and the creator of the beloved Revelation Space universe, strap in for a gripping murder mystery.</b><br /><br />Yuri Gagarin is a private investigator, who picks up small cases from his local community, runs into trouble with the local police, and generally ekes out a living as best he...It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. <br /><br />Already an international bestseller, <i>Small Things Like These</i> is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one...The first thing Vanessa Carvin does when she arrives on the island is change her name. To the locals, she is Willow Hale, a solitary outsider escaping Dublin to live a hermetic existence in a small cottage, not a notorious woman on the run from her past.<br /><br />But scandals follow like hunting dogs. And she has some questions of her own to answer. If her ex-husband is really the monster everyone says he is, then how complicit was she in his crimes?<br /><br />Escaping her old life might seem...
Solenoid A highly-acclaimed masterwork of fiction from Mircea Cărtărescu, author of Blinding: an existence (and eventually a cosmos) created by forking paths.

Based on Cărtărescu’s own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist’s life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. One character asks another: when you rush into the burning building, will you save the newborn or the artwork? On a broad scale, the novel’s investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art.

The novel is grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, including long lines for groceries, the absurdities of the education system, and the misery of family life. The text includes sequences in a tuberculosis sanatorium, an encounter with an anti-death protest movement, a society of dream investigators, and an extended visit to the minuscule world of dust mites living on a microscope slide.

Combining fiction with autobiography and history― the scientists Nicolae Tesla and George Boole, for example, appear alongside the Voynich manuscript―Solenoid ruminates on the exchanges possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various, monstrous dimensions erupt within the Communist present.