Discover the fantastical Sunday Times bestselling short story collection from the award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life.
'Simply one of the best writers working today, anywhere in the world' Gillian Flynn
'As soon as you get to the end, you'll be tempted to just start at the beginning' Independent
'Funny and poignant in equal measure, you'll want to read this captivating collection in one mystical sitting.' Daily Express
Welcome to a world, where nothing is quite what it seems...
In these pages, you'll meet, among others, a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep, a secretary who watches over the life she has just left, and a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him.
With clockwork intricacy, inventiveness and sharp social observation, Kate Atkinson conjures a feast for the imagination in a constantly changing multiverse.
Atkinson's first short story collection in twenty years, Normal Rules Don't Apply is a dazzling array of eleven interconnected tales.
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'Hilarious, breathtaking, horrific, irresistible ... [Atkinson is] always in command ... Heart in mouth, I never wanted this book to end' Sydney Morning Herald
'Sublime ... showcases her superb storytelling and the wit of her writing' Good Housekeeping
'Life in all of its surreal, tragic and comic glory is perfectly captured within these pages' Red
'Dazzling' Reader's Digest
Praise for Kate Atkinson:
'Inexhaustibly ingenious' HILARY MANTEL
'A brilliant and profoundly original writer' RACHEL CUSK
'Atkinson is a novelist of unrivalled immediacy, authority, and skill' FINANCIAL TIMES
'One of the country's most innovative, exciting and intelligent authors.' SCOTSMAN
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
August 24, 2023 -
Formats
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781529198300
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781529198300
- File size: 6266 KB
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Accessibility
Publisher statement (EPUB)
The publisher provides the following statement about the accessibility of the EPUB file supplied to OverDrive. Experiences may vary across reading systems. After borrowing the book, you may download the EPUB files to read in another reading system.
Summary
This ebook will feature some basic accessibility support but may currently lack some important features such as described images. To learn more about our commitment to accessibility, please visit us online at penguin.co.uk/company/about-us/notices/accessibility
Ways Of Reading
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Not all of the content will be readable as read aloud speech or dynamic braille.
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No information is available.
Navigation
Table of contents to all chapters of the text via links.
Additional Information
High contrast between text and background
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
August 7, 2023
This stunning collection from Atkinson (Shrines of Gaiety) is a master class in literary worldbuilding. These 11 interconnected stories happen in a world one step removed from this one, where human existence is regulated by the Void, a daily, five-minute apocalyptic event causing mass death. Here, characters proper to fairy tales, myths, and scripture rub shoulders with inhabitants of northern England in scenes from otherwise prosaic lives: recurring character Franklin, for example, who, over the course of the collection, meets a talking horse and a chatty dog, and finally drives off with Aoife, the bewitched child of a queen. In “Gene-Sis,” humankind is subject to the decisions of Kitty, an advertising executive and Sister of God, who must remake the world from scratch while simultaneously writing a campaign for a new, healthy smoothie. “Blithe Spirit” follows Mandy, a downtrodden secretary to a disreputable politician, who observes the investigation into her own murder from the ghostly beyond. Atkinson delights in metafictional possibilities: young Franklin’s idea for a novel—“A text based on non-linear dynamics, a Borgesian exploration of parallel worlds”—though ridiculed by other characters, mimics the collection’s structure. If the concept sounds promisingly fun, the whimsical but sharp prose is built to match, full of speculative glee, but tinged with poignancy. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (Sept).
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Formats
- OverDrive Read
- EPUB ebook
subjects
Languages
- English
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