Jasper Fforde
Three separate interviews in which Jasper Fforde discusses the Thursday Next series, his Nursery Crime novels and Shades of Grey, the first in a trilogy set in a future world recognizable as our own - but only just.
Abraham Verghese
An interview with Abraham Verghese about his life and writing and in particular about his extraordinary 2009 novel Cutting for Stone, set in 1960s and '70s Ethiopia and 1980s New York.
Martha A Sandweiss
An interview with Martha Sandweiss in which she discusses her book Passing Strange, a biography of Clarence King who lived a double life—as the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a black Pullman porter named James Todd, married to Ada with whom he had five children.
Amy Greene
Amy Greene talks about her first novel, Bloodroot, which brings her native Appalachia—and the faith and fury of its people—to rich and vivid life.
The Dream of Scipio: Summary and book reviews of The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears, plus links to an excerpt from The Dream of Scipio and a biography of Iain Pears.
The Dream of Scipio
by
Iain Pears
Hardcover: Jun 2002,
608 pages.
Paperback: Jun 2003,
416 pages.
"May well be the best historical mystery ever written," proclaimed The Sunday Boston Globe about Iain Pears's An Instance of the Fingerpost, while Booklist called its publication "a major literary event." Iain Pears's international bestseller was greeted with front-page reviews ("A crafty, utterly mesmerizing intellectual thriller"--The Washington Post Book World), named a New York Times Notable Book, and hailed as a Book to Remember by the New York Public Library. Now he returns with a greatly anticipated novel that is so brilliantly constructed, the author himself describes it as "a complexity."
The centuries are the fifth (the final days of the Roman Empire); the fourteenth (the years of the Black Death); and the twentieth (World War II). The setting for each is the same--Provence--and each has at its heart a love story. The narratives intertwine seamlessly, but what joins them thematically is an ancient text--"The Dream of Scipio"--a work of neo-Platonism that poses timeless philosophical questions. What is the obligation of the individual in a society under siege? What is the role of learning when civilization itself is threatened, whether by acts of man or nature? Does virtue lie more in engagement or in neutrality? "Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless," warns one of Pears's characters.
Book Reviews
BookPage
An enormously accomplished work that stand as a learned novel of ideas, a meditation on history and a moving love story, all rolled into one volume.
Library Journal - Barbara Hoffert
... the plotting is a marvel; the text moves smoothly among the three eras, drawing parallels that rarely seem forced. In the end, Pears asks good, cutting questions about the idea of civilization, showing that those who claim to preserve it are often its worst enemies.
Booklist
Pears' elaborate narrative triptych is dazzling for its structure, its complexity, and the richness of thought that gives it texture. But, finally, it is the passion of the love stories, undercutting bloodless philosophy while embracing the messiness of life, that lets the novel soar.
Kirkus Reviews
This imposingly intricate novel begins slowly, makes heavy demands on the reader, and rises to a stunningly dramatic crescendo
The Wall Street Journal
Complex, surprising and thought-provoking, a dream of a novel in more sense than one.
Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legacies—of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss—that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today.
Samara Taylor used to believe in miracles. But her mother is in rehab, and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. And when a young girl in her small town is kidnapped, her already-worn thread of faith begins to unravel.
When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, quirky, tart-tongued archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives happily alone in Norfolk. But when a child's bones are found on a desolate beach nearby, and Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson calls Galloway for help, Ruth finds herself in...
Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole –and the grown woman whose story is no less...
The Coral Thief, as riveting and beautifully rendered as Ghostwalk, Rebecca Stott’s first novel, is a provocative and tantalizing mix of history, philosophy, and suspense. It conjures up vividly both the feats of Napoleon and the accomplishments of those working without fame or...
I rarely read anything before this. Years ago I picked this one up and couldn't put it down. It changed me into a book nut. It was a wonderful ...
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I can't believe I waited so long to read this book. Shame on me. This book was wonderful, lyrical, entertaining - all the makings of a wonderful ...
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The book held so much for the reader but in the end I felt robbed. The evolution of Trudy was disturbing and somewhat insulting. She came across as ...
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Justice Department still has issues with Google Settlement(Feb 05 2010) The Department of Justice dealt a serious blow Thursday evening to the chances that the Google Book Search settlement will gain court approval later this...
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Hachette formally adopts 'agency model'(Feb 05 2010) Hachette Book Group USA became the second major U.S. publisher to officially announce its intention to move to an agency model for the sale of e-books....
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The Dream of Scipio
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