In Hollywood, Cary Grant has grown weary of cinema's constant glamour, but Her Majesty's Secret Service will break his malaise with a bizarre diplomatic mission. In Naples, Lucky Luciano fixes horse races and launches the global heroin trade. And in Bologna, a bartender searches for true love and his missing communist father.
Set during the height of the Cold War - with the world divided into East and West - 54 features Italian partisans, KGB agents, Parisian lowlifes, and cameos by David Niven, Marshal Tito, and Grace Kelly. Wu Ming brings us a cinematic romp that is by turns edgy social satire and modern comic send up.
Publishers Weekly
The latest joint effort (after the novel Q) from Wu Ming ... offers political commentary–cum–complicated escapism for the brainiac reader.
Booklist
This mix of literary thriller and sophisticated satire makes a tasty madcap dessert after the full meal of DeLillo's Underworld.
Kirkus Reviews
Don Camillo meets The Name of the Rose meets Dr. No: a rewarding beach book for grownups.
The Times (London)
A sprawling epic .... a formidable feat of imagination.
Scotland on Sunday
A stupendous, charming, provcative and profound novel. It makes most modern books seem paltry in comparison.
The Independent
Don't ask me just how the Wu Ming clan have pulled off this coup. I only know that their blend of outrageous burlesque and offbeat satire sparles like a bottle of the best prosecco from a worker's co-op vineyard.
The Guardian
Diverting post-modernist entertainment - about narcotics, the cheap potency of Hollywood, the coming of television, the balance of political power, and how the effects knock on down the line - is skilled in teasing fact and fiction.
An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master's Son follows a young man's journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world's most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.
War, natural disaster, reckless gods and the recognition of impermanence in the world are just some of the threads that AS Byatt weaves into this most timely of books. Linguistically stunning and imaginatively abundant, this is a landmark.
A beguiling, imaginative, inspiring story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history, exploring how we use storytelling to survive and shape our own truths.
Brilliantly evoking the long-vanished world of masters and servants, Margaret Powell's classic memoir of her time in service is the remarkable true story of an indomitable woman who, though she served in the great houses of England, never stopped aiming high.
Vivid, daring, and unforgettable, The Printmaker's Daughter shines fresh light on art, loyalty, and the tender and indelible bond between a father and daughter.
After hearing the interview on NPR with the author, Ayad Akhtar, I was intrigued.
This is a timely, contemporary novel concerning topics of...
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I read The Healing in two sittings it is a fascinating story of plantation life at the beginning of the Civil War. Granada, a slave newborn child...
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