Overview

If he suddenly found what surrounded him unbearable, it was because it was artificial Everything had been designed and manufactured, and he was trapped in it Philip Notman, an acclaimed historian, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London, and to his wife and son, something unexpected and inexplicable happens to him, and he is unable to settle back into his normal life. Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to see Inés, a Spanish academic with whom he shared a connection at the conference, but his journey doesn't end there. A chance encounter with a wealthy, elderly couple sends him to a house on the south coast of Crete. Is he thinking of leaving his wife, whom he claims he still loves, or is he trying to change a reality that has become impossible to bear? Is he on a quest for a simpler and more authentic existence, or is he utterly self-deluded? As he tries to make sense of both his personal circumstances and the world surrounding him, he finds himself embarking on a course of action that will push him to the very brink of disaster.

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9781035908547

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Reviews

I devoured [this book] in a single sitting. The sense of dislocation – and location – made it seem like a dream of another life, all of it so lyrical and yet narratively acute. A wonderful achievement. * Jonathan Lethem * Masterfully ambiguous ... How to Make a Bomb raises complicated questions ... but doesn’t neatly wrap them up. Rather, it allows the ideological inquiries at the center of the book to linger and bloom for continued consideration .... How to Make a Bomb provides a powerfully evocative catalyst for thought and feeling -- Matt Bell * New York Times * 'A novel that turns a midlife crisis inside out, rewardingly...the result, in Thomson's expert hands, is fast-paced and headlong; the book ends up rewiring the reader's sense of what's banal and what's not. A work about estrangement and solitude that's surprisingly rapid, engaging, light-footed.' * Kirkus Reviews * PRAISE FOR RUPERT THOMSON: ‘Each novel he writes is a new vision of a new world; he's the least predictable, the most surprising of writers.’ Philip Pullman; ‘Hands down, Rupert Thomson is one of my favourite writers of all time. I impatiently wait for his new novels and he never disappoints.’ Andrea Wulf; ‘When someone writes as well as Thomson does, it makes you wonder why other people bother.’ * New Statesman *

Author Information

Rupert Thomson is the author of thirteen critically acclaimed novels, including The Insult, which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize, and chosen by David Bowie as one of his 100 Must-Read Books of All Time, Death of a Murderer, which was shortlisted for the Costa Prize, and The Book of Revelation, which was made into a feature film by the Australian writer/director, Ana Kokkinos. His memoir, This Party’s Got to Stop, won the Writers’ Guild Non-Fiction Book of the Year in 2010. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has contributed to the Financial Times, Guardian, London Review of Books, Granta, and Independent. He lives in London.

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