The Mandibles

By Lionel Shriver,

Book cover of The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047

Book description

'Distinctly chilling' Independent

'Unsettling as it is entertaining' Financial Times

'It's scaring the hell out of me' Tracy Chevalier

THE BRILLIANT NEW NOVEL FROM THE ORANGE PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN.

It is 2029.

The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune filtering down when…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Mandibles as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Shriver is an unusual combination: a contemporary novelist who is seriously interested in the big socio-economic changes going on in the world and writes razor-sharp columns. Although not her best-known book (that title must belong to We Need to Talk about Kevin), The Mandibles is I think her best. In contrast to the optimism of Julian Simon cited above, Shriver looks into a dystopian future in which (among many other things) more Mexicans are trying to leave the US than arrive and inflation takes off again. All the while, civilisation breaks down. Taking this book and Simon’s together—an unlikely…

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