Why did I love this book?
Author Alix Nathan discovered an advertisement in a 1797 publication: A scientist offered a reward of 50 pounds a year for life to a man who would live alone in an underground bunker for seven years.
As a writer, I was intrigued: How would the author portray the man who would propose such an experiment, and who in the world would subject himself to it? Nathan’s scientist is himself a social misfit, and the man who comes forward for his experiment is a poor laborer.
Some say that writing spoils one for reading, and I constantly find myself trying to dissect how the writer works her magic. But I was so absorbed in The Warlow Experiment that I forgot to engage in this writerly analysis. It is a truly fascinating read.
1 author picked The Warlow Experiment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A Sunday Times fiction book of the year
'She is an original, with a virtuoso touch' - Hilary Mantel
'An extraordinary, quite brilliant book' - C. J. Sansom
'A powerful and unsettling novel' - Andrew Taylor
The year is 1793 and Herbert Powyss is set on making his name as a scientist. Determined to study the effects of prolonged solitude on another human being, he advertises for someone willing to live in his cellar for seven years in return for a generous financial reward. The only man to apply is John Warlow, a semi-literate farm labourer with a wife and…