{"product_id":"a-history-of-water-9780008358259","title":"A History of Water","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Times History Book of the Year 2022A TLS Book of the Year 2022Exhilarating and whip-smart' THE SUNDAY TIMESFrom award-winning writer Edward Wilson-Lee, this is a thrilling true historical detective story set in sixteenth-century Portugal.A History of Water follows the interconnected lives of two men across the Renaissance globe. One of them  an aficionado of mermen and Ethiopian culture, an art collector, historian and expert on water-music  returns home from witnessing the birth of the modern age to die in a mysterious incident, apparently the victim of a grisly and curious murder. The other  a ruffian, vagabond and braggart, chased across the globe from Mozambique to Japan  ends up as the national poet of Portugal.The stories of Damião de Góis and Luís de Camões capture the extraordinary wonders that awaited Europeans on their arrival in India and China, the challenges these marvels presented to longstanding beliefs, and the vast conspiracy to silence the questions these posed about the nature of history and of human life.Like all good mysteries, everyone has their own version of events.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e             \u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE FOR \u003cem\u003eA HISTORY OF WATER\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e           \u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘[An] exhilarating book… passionate… employing prose as luscious as it is meticulous… delightful’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Erudite and engrossing…the book combines literary flair with deep historical insight… One of its many strengths is its vivid characterisation of people and places, not least those of Lisbon life high and low’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘This exhilarating and whip-smart book…presents two competing visions of global history through the lives of two Portuguese travellers…This book is itself something of a wonder: beautifully written and utterly mesmerising. I loved every page’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Sunday Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Enthralling throughout’ \u003cem\u003eThe Economist\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘A wonderful – and wonder-full – recreation of a crucial episode in European history…the book has a rare beauty: written with elegant restraint, its every page is rich in a numinous sense of vanishings and misunderstandings’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Fascinating, elegantly written’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Spectator\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘A fascinating, ingenious and wonderfully readable book, brilliantly conceived… The book is a triumph.’\u003cstrong\u003e David Abulafia, \u003cem\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘A very few times in the course of a reader's life a book appears that shatters one's assumptions about how and why things came to pass. \u003cem\u003eA History of Water\u003c\/em\u003e is one such book. A mind-blowing achievement’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAlberto Manguel, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Library at Night\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘A truly engrossing read. Wilson-Lee has the rare knack of re-visiting even the most familiar places as if they were being discovered for the first time. His prose is rich, fluent, absorbing, and free from any affectation’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFernando Cervantes, author of \u003cem\u003eConquistadores\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘This is a terrific book’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGabriel Josipovici, author of \u003cem\u003eWhat Ever Happened to Modernism?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘I adored this… This is a dazzling, encyclopaedic history’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDennis Duncan, author of \u003cem\u003eIndex, A History of The\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48242730041687,"sku":"9780008358259","price":11.69,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780008358259.jpg?v=1716233057","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/a-history-of-water-9780008358259","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}