John Lanchester è celebrato per i suoi romanzi acuti e le sue opere di saggistica, che spesso approfondiscono le complessità della vita moderna. La sua scrittura è caratterizzata da un'acuta osservazione, un'arguzia intelligente e un talento nello scoprire verità più profonde sulla società. Lanchester esplora l'impatto dei cambiamenti economici e della globalizzazione sugli individui e sulle comunità. Il suo lavoro offre una prospettiva ricca e stimolante sul mondo contemporaneo.
Selfie sticks with demonic powers. Cold calls from the dead. And the creeping suspicion that none of this is real. Reality, and Other Stories is a gathering of deliciously chilling entertainments from John Lanchester, the Booker- nominated author of The Wall and Capital.
Het schrikbeeld van Engeland: het land wordt langs de kustlijn omringd door een enorme muur. Waar eens golven op stranden sloegen bevindt zich nu een massieve, duizenden kilometers lange betonnen grens. Dag en nacht patrouilleren er mensen op de muur, jonge mannen en vrouwen met geweren en het bevel alle vreemdelingen buiten te houden. Voor de achttienjarige Joseph Kavanagh is het de dagelijkse realiteit. Twee jaar van zijn leven moet hij, net als ieder ander, zijn plicht als verdediger vervullen. Iedere vluchteling die probeert binnen te dringen moet hij met geweld buitenhouden. Wie faalt wacht de dood, of wordt zelf naar zee verbannen. De muur is een angstaanjagende en zeer realistische roman over migratie en klimaatverandering, overleven in barre tijden, de kloof tussen jong en oud, maar ook over het menselijke vermogen tot empathie en liefde tijdens fundamentele onzekerheid. De muur beschrijft een wereld die onmiskenbaar de onze is, zij het onherstelbaar beschadigd.
Ravaged by the Change, an island nation in a time very like our own has built the Wall―an enormous concrete barrier around its entire coastline. Joseph Kavanagh, a new Defender, has one task: to protect his section of the Wall from the Others, the desperate souls who are trapped amid the rising seas outside and are a constant threat. Failure will result in death or a fate perhaps worse: being put to sea and made an Other himself. Beset by cold, loneliness, and fear, Kavanagh tries to fulfill his duties to his demanding Captain and Sergeant, even as he grows closer to his fellow Defenders. A dark part of him wonders whether it would be interesting if something did happen, if they came, if he had to fight for his life.
The biggest problem for outsiders in the world of economics is that most of the time, we don't know what the hell the insiders are talking about. To know that, you have to understand the words they're using. The language of economic elites can be complex, jargon-filled and completely baffling. But if we don't know what they're talking about, we're making our decisions at the ballot box on insufficient information.
This book explores the mysteries of the Underground, detailing its significance to London and beyond, while answering questions about the Tube, tube drivers, and where to find driver-point-of-view videos.
The residents of Pepys Road, London - a banker and his shopaholic wife, an elderly woman dying of a brain tumour, the Pakistani family who run the local shop, the young football star from Senegal and his minder - all receive anonymous postcards with a simple message: We Want What You Have. Who is behind it? What do they want? As the mystery of the postcards deepens, the world around Pepys Road is turned upside down by the financial crash and all of its residents' lives change beyond recognition over the course of the next year. From the bestselling author of Whoops! and How to Speak Money comes a post-financial crisis, state-of-the-nation novel told with compassion, humour and unflinching truth.
We are, to use a technical economic term, screwed. The cowboy capitalists had a party with everyone's money and now we're all paying for it. What went wrong? And will we learn our lesson - or just carry on as before, like celebrating surviving a heart attack with a packet of Rothmans? In Whoops he explains, in language everyone can understand, what really happened - and what on earth we do next.
Fragrant Harbour is the story of four people whose intertwined lives span Asia's last seventy years.
Erstaunliche Dinge ereignen sich an diesem einen Tag, zumindest aus der Sicht von Mr. Phillips, der ansonsten ein eintöniges Leben als Buchhalter führt. Er trifft einen berufsmäßigen Pornographen, wird Zeuge eines Banküberfalls und stirbt beinahe den Heldentod. Auf dem Weg durch das Dickicht von London errechnet Mr. Phillips, den Sex fast genauso beschäftigt wie sein Beruf, dass pro Jahr 17 000 nackte Frauen in englischen Magazinen zu sehen sind, und stellt sich die Frage, ob für den Eintritt ins Pornokino auch Mehrwertsteuer bezahlt werden muss. Abends, als er schließlich in seinen Vorort zurückkehrt, hat er noch immer keine Ahnung, wie er Mrs. Phillips beibringen soll, dass er seine Arbeit verloren hat. Das Porträt eines ganz gewöhnlichen Mannes und seiner Stadt - ein gefundenes literarisches Fressen für Zyniker und Moralisten gleichermaßen.
"One warm July morning Mr Phillips climbs out of bed, leaving Mrs Phillips dozing. He prepares for his commute into the city - but this is no ordinary Wednesday. It is a day on which Mr Phillips will chat with a pornographer, stalk a tv mini-celebrity, have lunch with an aspiring record mogul, and get caught up in a bank robbery. It is, as Mr Phillips comes to realise, the first day of the rest of his life - whether he wants it to be or not. All this is both better and worse than being at work. So why is Mr Phillips, a cautious middle-aged accountant, not behind his desk calculating the financial consequences of redundancies or recommending the savings to be made from more responsible use of yellow sticky note pads?"--Publisher's description.
Draws the reader, through descriptions of food and cooking, into a world of murder and art. Narrated by Tarquin, an ironist, epicurean and a snob, this novel is constructed around a series of seasonal menus, which unfold his autobiography.
Il primo romanzo scritto in inglese da Vladimir Nabokov è la biografia di un fittizio scrittore inglese di origini russe, il cui destino si intreccia in vari punti con quello dell'autore. Il narratore è il fratellastro del protagonista, che, dopo anni di separazione, si mette sulle tracce del fratello morto prematuramente, anche per confrontarsi con il precedente testamento del segretario di Knight. La polemica con la superficiale e tendenziosa "Tragedia di Sebastiano Knight" può essere letta come un commento ironico di Nabokov sulla vita letteraria contemporanea e sulla scrittura sensazionalistica, routinaria o moralizzante. Questo testo giocoso e stratificato, grazie ad analisi di libri inesistenti e ampi citazioni, acquista un potenziale di mistificazione, fungendo sia da biografia di un letterato che da tragico racconto d'amore con elementi di giallo e sottile parodia di questi generi. Le due donne fondamentali nella vita del protagonista toccano il tema del conflitto delle identità culturali in esilio: sebbene desideri diventare inglese, alla fine ama e muore come russo. Attraverso un raffinato gioco di sovrapposizioni tra narratore e protagonista, il romanzo testimonia l'inconoscibilità e l'indescrivibilità della "vera vita" di chiunque nella sua interezza.
