Search results for ""author ian mcewan""

The second collection of blazingly original short stories from Booker prize-winning, Sunday Times-bestselling author Ian McEwan.A two-timing pornographer becomes the unwilling object of one of his victim's vengeful fantasies. A millionaire buys himself the perfect mistress – passive, yet beautiful – but the union soon becomes a nightmare of jealousy and despair. And an ape reflects on the relationship with a young female writer, mourning their fading love and musing on the fateful deceptions of art. In these seven stories of dream-like lucidity, the wasteland of the human psyche is mapped with deadly precision.‘Resonant and frightening...totally original’ Observer‘Exact, tender, funny, voluptuous, disturbing’ The Times

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Rediscover the classic novel of love, violence and obsessions from Booker prize-winning Sunday Times bestselling author Ian McEwan.Colin and Mary are a couple whose intimacy knows no bounds. Away on a holiday together in a nameless city, they get lost one evening in a labyrinth of streets and canals. They happen upon Robert, a stranger with a dark history, who takes them to a bar and ushers them down into a subterranean land of violence and obsession.‘Haunting and compelling’ The Times‘No reader will begin The Comfort of Strangers and fail to finish it; a black magician is at work’ New York Times

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Black Dogs is a dark and brooding masterpiece from Booker-prize winning Sunday Times bestselling author Ian McEwan.In 1946, June and Bernard set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they had planned an idyllic holiday, but in France they witness an event that alters the course of their lives entirely. Forty years on, their son-in-law is trying to uncover the cause of their estrangement and is led back to this moment on honeymoon and an experience of such darkness it was to wrench the couple apart.‘Powerful... Unforgettable’ Sunday Telegraph‘Thoughtful and compassionate’ London Review of Books

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The Innocent is a startlingly prescient novel from Booker prize-winning Sunday Times bestselling author Ian McEwan.Into a Berlin wrenched between East and West, comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team. Though only a pawn in an international plot, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life.The promise of his new life begins to be fulfilled as Leonard becomes a crucial part of the surveillance team, while simultaneously being initiated into a new world of love and sex by Maria, a beautiful young German woman. It is a promise that turns to horror in the course of one terrible evening - a night when Leonard Marnham learns just how much of his innocence he's willing to shed.'The plot crackles like thin ice with dread and suspense' Mail on Sunday

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Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home – a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse – but not with John. Instead, she's with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy's womb.Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world’s master storytellers.

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Fiona Maye is a leading High Court judge, presiding over cases in the family court. She is renowned for her fierce intelligence, exactitude and sensitivity. But her professional success belies private sorrow and domestic strife. There is the lingering regret of her childlessness, and now, her marriage of thirty years is in crisis.At the same time, she is called on to try an urgent case: for religious reasons, a beautiful seventeen-year-old boy, Adam, is refusing the medical treatment that could save his life, and his devout parents share his wishes. Time is running out. Should the secular court overrule sincerely held faith? In the course of reaching a decision Fiona visits Adam in hospital – an encounter which stirs long-buried feelings in her and powerful new emotions in the boy. Her judgment has momentous consequences for them both.

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Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. A compulsive womaniser, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. But this time it is different: his wife is having the affair, and he is still in love with her. When Beard's professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself for Beard to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster.

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Charles Frieth, pre-eminent composer, conductor and prodigious womaniser, is preparing for a performance of one of his early works, and the world premiere of Demonic Aubade. Obstinate and myopic, he is oblivious to the growing turmoil around him; his wife's poor health and sadness; the exhausted efforts of his secretary, and the destructive passion of his housekeeper, Maria.As the first performance draws near, the maestro is suddenly awoken to the chaos, and as Charles struggles to regain control of his life, a terrible tragedy begins to unfold.

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On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

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**AS FEATURED ON BBC2'S BETWEEN THE COVERS**Discover the tragic masterpiece from Booker prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling Ian McEwan.One windy spring day in the Chilterns Joe Rose's calm, organised life is shattered by a ballooning accident. The afternoon could have ended in mere tragedy, but for his brief meeting with Jed Parry. Unknown to Joe, something passes between them - something that gives birth in Parry to an obsession so powerful that it will test to the limits Joe's beloved scientific rationalism, threaten the love of his wife Clarissa and drive him to the brink of murder and madness.'A plot so engrossing that it seems reckless to pick the book up in the evening if you plan to get any sleep that night' A.S. Byatt

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'Beard sank into a gloom of inattention, not because the planet was in peril - that moronic word again - but because someone was telling him it was with such enthusiasm'Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. He now spends his days speaking for enormous fees and half-heartedly heading a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. A compulsive womaniser, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. But this time, she's having the affair.When Beard's professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity arises for Beard to simultaneously save his marriage and the world from environmental disaster.'Savagely funny... Enormously entertaining' Sunday Times'A satirical masterpiece...it will come to be regarded as a classic' Daily Telegraph'A stunningly accomplished work, possibly his best yet' Financial TimesVINTAGE EARTH is a collection of novels to transform our relationship with the natural world. Each one is a work of creative activism, a blast of fresh air, a seed from which change can grow. The books in this series reconnect us to the planet we inhabit - and must protect. Discover great writing on the most urgent story of our times.

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Ian McEwan's celebrated novel, now an unmissable film starring Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan (Atonement, Brooklyn) It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their private fears of the wedding night to come and, unbeknownst to them both, the events of the evening will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

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In the relentless summer heat, four abruptly orphaned children retreat into a shadowy, isolated world, and find their own strange and unsettling ways of fending for themselves...

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'A web of spying, subterfuge, deceit and betrayal... Acute, witty...winningly cunning' Sunday TimesThe year is 1972, the Cold War is far from over and Serena Frome, in her final year at Cambridge, is being groomed for MI5. Sent on Operation Sweet Tooth - a highly secret undercover mission - she meets Tom Haley, a promising young writer. First she loves his stories, then she begins to love the man. Can she maintain the fiction of her undercover life? And who is inventing whom? To answer these questions, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage - trust no one.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE AND NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTUREIt is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their private fears of the wedding night to come and, unbeknownst to them both, the events of the evening will haunt them for the rest of their lives.'McEwan brings Florence and Edward touchingly alive for us' Guardian

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‘Atonement is a masterpiece’ The TimesOn the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia plunge naked into the fountain in the garden of their country house.Watching her too is Robbie Turner who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever.Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.'The best thing he has ever written' Observer**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**

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**AS FEATURED ON BBC2'S BETWEEN THE COVERS**Discover the tragic masterpiece from Booker prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling Ian McEwan.One windy spring day in the Chilterns Joe Rose's calm, organised life is shattered by a ballooning accident. The afternoon could have ended in mere tragedy, but for his brief meeting with Jed Parry. Unknown to Joe, something passes between them - something that gives birth in Parry to an obsession so powerful that it will test to the limits Joe's beloved scientific rationalism, threaten the love of his wife Clarissa and drive him to the brink of murder and madness.'A plot so engrossing that it seems reckless to pick the book up in the evening if you plan to get any sleep that night' A.S. Byatt

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Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In a world not quite like this one, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding.Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever – a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns of the power to invent things beyond our control.

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Kafka meets The Thick Of It in a bitingly funny new political satire from Ian McEwanThat morning, Jim Sams, clever but by no means profound, woke from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic creature.Jim Sams has undergone a metamorphosis. In his previous life he was ignored or loathed, but in his new incarnation he is the most powerful man in Britain – and it is his mission to carry out the will of the people. Nothing must get in his way: not the opposition, nor the dissenters within his own party. Not even the rules of parliamentary democracy.With trademark intelligence, insight and scabrous humour, Ian McEwan pays tribute to Franz Kafka’s most famous work to engage with a world turned on its head.

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**Number One Sunday Times Bestseller**Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret.When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he co-designs Adam's personality.This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever - and soon a love triangle forms, which leads Charlie, Miranda and Adam to a profound moral dilemma. Can you design the perfect partner? What makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives?Provocative and moving, Machines Like Me explores whether a machine can ever truly understand the human heart.'Funny, thought-provoking and politically acute...' Sunday Times'Dazzling' Guardian'An unsettling examination of the human condition. Bold, clever' Sunday Telegraph

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A brilliant, emotionally wrenching new novel from the author of Atonement and Amsterdam.Fiona Maye, a leading High Court judge, renowned for her fierce intelligence and sensitivity is called on to try an urgent case. For religious reasons, a seventeen-year-old boy is refusing the medical treatment that could save his life. Time is running out.She visits the boy in hospital – an encounter which stirs long-buried feelings in her and powerful new emotions in the boy. But it is Fiona who must ultimately decide whether he lives or dies and her judgement will have momentous consequences for them both.

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The publication of Atonement cemented Ian McEwan’s reputation as one of the most exciting and accomplished writers of his generation. From its breath-taking opening section, telling the events of a fateful summer’s day in 1935, McEwan unravels a tale of love and war that breaks the heart, even as the master novelist’s provocative twists of form dazzle the senses.

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'Dazzling... Profound and urgent' Observer'A book of great maturity, beautifully alive to the fragility of happiness and all forms of violence... Everyone should read Saturday' Financial TimesSaturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne, a successful neurosurgeon, stands at his bedroom window before dawn and watches a plane - ablaze with fire like a meteor - arcing across the London sky. Over the course of the following day, unease gathers about Perowne, as he moves amongst hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors in the post-9/11 streets.A minor car accident brings him into confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive man, who to Perowne's professional eye appears to be profoundly unwell. But it is not until Baxter makes a sudden appearance at the Perowne family home that Henry's earlier fears seem about to be realised...

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Two old friends - Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday - meet at the funeral of gorgeous, witty Molly Lane.Both men had been Molly's lovers years before their dazzling success; Clive is Britain's most eminent modern composer and Vernon is the editor of the respected broadsheet, The Judge. In the weeks that follow, Clive and Vernon's lives become bound together in ways neither could have imagined. Two dubious moral decisions and a pact made in extremis lead them both to the heart of Amsterdam, and to their doom.'The novel twists and turns unexpectedly...McEwan has a master's control over his instrument' Sunday Times

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The story of a life. The story of the year.'Lessons shows [McEwan] at the very peak of his powers. He has written his masterpiece' Daily TelegraphWhen the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.Twenty-five years later Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes, and he is left alone with their baby son. Her disappearance sparks of journey of discovery that will continue for decades, as Roland confronts the reality of his rootless existence and attempts to embrace the uncertainty - and freedom - of his future.'Ian McEwan is a masterful storyteller' Elif Shafak'A beautiful book about love, loss and regret' Observer'Luminous, beautifully written... about lives imperfectly lived' Vogue'A whole, unruly life between the covers of a single book: a literary feat' Spectator'A tour de force... A single life is silhouetted against global happenings' Sunday Times* A Book of the Year for The Times, Sunday Times, Financial Times, Spectator, New Statesman, Washington Post, Vogue and New Yorker *

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Now a major BBC drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch'Only Ian McEwan could write about loss with such telling honesty' Benedict CumberbatchOn a routine trip to the supermarket with his daughter one Saturday morning, Stephen Lewis, a well-known writer of children's books, turns his back momentarily. When he looks around again, his child is gone. In a single moment, everything is changed. The kidnapping has a devastating effect on Stephen's life and marriage. Memories and the present become inseparable - as Stephen gets lost in daydreams of the past - and time bends back on itself, dragging Stephen's own childhood back into the present.

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