The Book of Strange New Things Synopsis
I am with you always, even unto the end of the world...From the author of Under the Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White, the first novel from Michel Faber in fourteen years is a wildly original tale of adventure, faith and the ties that might hold two people together when they are worlds apart. Peter Leigh is a husband, a Christian, and now a missionary. As The Book of Strange New Things opens, he is set to embark on a journey that will be the biggest test of his faith yet. From the moment he says goodbye to his wife, Bea, and boards his flight, he begins a quest that will challenge his religious beliefs, his love and his understanding of the limits of the human body. This momentous novel is Faber at his expectation-defying best. It is a brilliantly compelling book about love in the face of death, and the search for meaning in an unfathomable universe.
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Michel Faber Press Reviews
'Michel Faber's second masterpiece, quite different to The Crimson Petal and The White but every bit as luminescent and memorable. It is a portrait of a living, breathing relationship, frayed by distance. It is an enquiry into the mountains faith can move and the mountains faith can't move. It is maniacally gripping. I didn't so much read The Book of Strange New Things as inhabit it'
- DAVID MITCHELL
'I can't remember being so continually and unfailingly surprised by any book for a long time, and part of the surprise is the tenderness and delicacy with which he shows an emotional relationship developing in one direction while withering in another. I found it completely compelling and believable, and admired it enormously.'
- PHILIP PULLMAN
'Weird and disturbing, like any work of genius, this novel haunted me for the seven nights I spent reading it, and haunts me still. A story of faith that will mesmerize believers and non-believers alike, a story of love in the face of the Apocalypse, a story of humanity set in an alien world -The Book of Strange New Things is desperately beautiful, sad, and unforgettable.'
- DAVID BENIOFF, author of City of Thieves and co-creator HBO series, Game of Thrones
'The Book of Strange New Things is indeed strange: a page-turner which manages to subvert every narrative expectation; a book about the future that forces you to reconsider the role of religion; a book about aliens that is mostly concerned with human love. It left me in a state of wonder and devastation.'
- KEVIN MacDONALD, director of One Day in September, Touching the Void and The Last King of Scotland
'This is a man who could give Conrad a run at writing the perfect sentence.'
-Guardian
'Faber writes some of the most ravishingly beautiful prose of any young writer.'
-Scotland on Sunday
'You are unlikely to regret a single hour/day/month spent in Faber's diverting, exuberant and intelligent company.'
-Financial Times
'Faber is the master of the spine-tingling page-turner, while creating a wholly believable universe.'
-Dazed and Confused
About Michel Faber
Michel Faber has written seven other books, including the highly acclaimed The Crimson Petal and the White, The Fahrenheit Twins and the Whitbread-shortlisted novel Under the Skin. The Apple, based on characters in The Crimson Petal and the White, was published in 2006. He has also written two novellas, The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps (2001) and The Courage Consort (2002), and has won several short-story awards, including the Neil Gunn, Ian St James and Macallan. Born in Holland, brought up in Australia, he now lives in the Scottish Highlands.
Author photo © Eva Faber
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