We live in a world of wonders! When my daughter was small, we used to go on wonder walks through our town—and led by the wide-open eyes of a child, we discovered amazing things. Magic and wonder aren’t just for kids. We all need it! And I never want to lose the capacity for it. Now I explore daily in my city of Montréal through the eyes of a camera, trying to see what I might miss if I weren’t open to the magic in the everyday. All of this inspires my writing, which uses fantasy elements to explore the human condition.
Piranesispoke deeply to me of the miraculous in the everyday. Clarke conjures a world so complete that, strange and sorrowful, severe and lonely as it is, you feel Piranesi’s attachment—and later his grief, when he learns the truth. For we’ve seen this world through his eyes: an infinite House, invaded by the sea, peopled by none other and visited by only one other—but full of wonders. Even as he suffers, Piranesi writes: The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite,and his diary records its beauties daily. “I am the Beloved Child of the House,” he says; and believing this, in his innocence and will to survive, he transforms both the simplest and harshest moments of the House into a bright, magical realm.
Winner of the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction A SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, 'one of our greatest living authors' NEW YORK MAGAZINE __________________________________ Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has.
In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend,…
I picked up this book because of its gorgeous front cover. Reading the back cover, I was instantly mesmerized. Such ravishing words! And such a strange notion. What would happen if suddenly, mammoth trees shot up and filled every space, splintering and sweeping houses, shops, gas stations, and roads up into their inexorable, growing, entwined branches? Civilization is shattered—electricity, running water, communications, all gone—and in its place is an endless forest. This is a story of apocalypse like no other, lovely and terrible in equal measure. Our extremely reluctant hero, Adrien, must learn to not just survive in the world of the trees, but to find its magic, and to help humanity have a proper place in it. Mythical and deeply philosophical.
There came an elastic aftershock of creaks and groans and then, softly softly, a chinking shower of rubbled cement. Leaves calmed and trunks stood serene. Where, not a minute before, there had been a suburb, there was now only woodland standing amid ruins...
There is no warning. No chance to prepare.
They arrive in the night: thundering up through the ground, transforming streets and towns into shadowy forest. Buildings are destroyed. Broken bodies, still wrapped in tattered bed linen, hang among the twitching leaves.
Adrien Thomas has never been much of a hero. But when he realises that no help…
This sweet portal fantasy explores the tender terrain of the human heart. During an outbreak, Tom is sent to live with his aunt and uncle—in a big house with no playmates and no garden. Lonely and pining, Tom stumbles into an earlier time, when the house had massive, glorious gardens, and a child his own age. He’s a kind of ghost there, but he and Hatty are real to each other... until time and growing up begins to rob them of what they had, and brings their two worlds together in a bittersweet, joyful-and-tearful ending. I first read the book as an adult, but wished I’d discovered it as a child, when it would have forever emblazoned my heart the way childhood magic does.
From beloved author Philippa Pearce, this sixtieth-anniversary edition is the perfect way to share this transcendent story of friendship with a new generation of readers. Philip Pullman, bestselling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, called Tom's Midnight Garden "A perfect book."
When Tom's brother gets sick, he's shipped off to spend what he's sure will be a boring summer with his aunt and uncle in the country. But then Tom hears the old grandfather clock in the hall chime thirteen times, and he's transported back to an old garden where he meets a young,…
Like so many others, my imagination was ignited by these books. Pullman created a solid world, so like our own in past times that it evokes wistful nostalgia, but so unique that it awakens an awed wonder. I adored the steampunk setting and all the time spent in academic environs. At the centre of it is a scrappy, young heroine who, for all her flaws, we fall in love with, and we enter wholeheartedly into her troubled journey. If that weren’t enough, the books explore deep, philosophical issues of relationships, power structures, and the very nature of being. When you finish the trilogy, you wake, as if from a dream... which you wish would never end.
This special collection features all three titles in the award-winning trilogy: Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.
Northern Lights Lyra Belacqua lives half-wild and carefree among the scholars of Jordan College, with her daemon familiar always by her side. But the arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the heart of a terrible struggle - a struggle born of Gobblers and stolen children, witch clans and armoured bears.
The Subtle Knife Lyra finds herself in a shimmering, haunted otherworld - Cittagazze, where soul-eating Spectres stalk the streets…
Having lived, in my youth, high in the Bolivian Andes, I was drawn to this tale, set mainly in the Peruvian cordilleras. And who can resist a book with “bedlam” in the title? Pulley invents an extraordinary world, rooted in ancient lore, but in detail invented, strange, magical, and compelling. Loving wordcraft sweeps you into a reality where you are just as confused as the protagonist, Merrick, stumbling his way through a dreamlike, unforgiving realm. Like Merrick, who is living in a culture he knows little of, we often aren’t sure what happened or why. And all the time, a friendship slowly grows between Merrick and Raphael, his guide and host—a friendship that will be tested by the inexorable workings of time-out-of-time.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE'S ENCORE AWARD 2018
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 2018
'A sheer fantastical delight' The Times
'Epic' New York Times
'An immense treat' Observer Books of the Year
'A fast-paced adventure story' i
'Magical' Sunday Express
In uncharted Peru, the holy town of Bedlam stands at the edge of a mysterious forest. Deep within are cinchona trees, whose bark yields the only known treatment for malaria.
In 1859, across the Pacific, India is ravaged by the disease. In desperation, the India Office dispatches the injured expeditionary Merrick Tremayne to Bedlam, under orders to…
I wanted to explore wonder through a collection of short tales. Each story has fantasy elements, but is firmly rooted in the real world. And each, in some way, explores the question: What's a life for?
For example, there’s young Bertie, who works at Haven House, where he serves those who have died—but are not yet dead. Or Gabe, who thought his life was all about his magical gift... but maybe it’s about something far more mysterious and valuable. And Caspertina Passala who, at age 103 is re-dreaming—or perhaps re-living—life’s events, and still learning about them. These stories explore mysteries of life, with a touch of whimsy.
I once saw a play at the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Theatre. A play about Sor Juana. It was a good play, but it felt like something was missing like jalapenos left out of enchiladas. The play kept nudging me to look further to find Sor Juana, and so for the next five years, I did so. I read and read more. I listened for her voice, and that is where I heard her life come alive. This isn’t the only possibility for Sor Juana’s life; it is just the one I heard.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, this brilliant 17th century nun flew through Mexico City on the breeze of poetry and philosophy. She met with princes of the Church, and with the royalty of Spain and Mexico. Then she met a stunning, powerful woman with lavender eyes, la Vicereine Maria Louisa, and her life changed forever. As her fame grew, she dared to challenge the diabolical Archbishop once too often, and he threw her in front of the Inquisition, where she stood, alone.
Sor Juana's work is studied still today, and justifiably so. Scholars study her months on end; mystics…
This astonishingly brilliant 17th century poet and dramatist, this nun, flew through Mexico City on wings of inspiration. Having no dowry, she chose the life of a nun so that she might learn, so that she might write, so that she might meet the most fascinating people of the western world. She accomplished all of that, and more.
One day a woman with violet eyes, eyes the color of passion flowers, entered her life. It was the new Vicereine, Maria Luisa. As the two most powerful women in Mexico City, the bond between them crossed politics and wound them in…
