Page 85 - The Economist

The Economist December 9th 2017 Books and arts 85
Stay with Me. By Ayobami Adebayo. Knopf; Fever Dream. By Samanta Schweblin. Trans-
Fiction 272 pages; $25.95. Canongate Books; £14.99 lated by Megan McDowell. Riverhead; 192
Agut-wrenchingtale ofhow wantinga pages; $25. OneWorld; £7.99
Lincoln in the Bardo. By George Saunders. child can wrecka woman, a marriage and Aslim novel about environmental disas-
Random House; 368 pages; $28. Bloomsbury; a community. Only 29, Ayobami Adebayo terand the outerlimits oflove. Subtle,
£18.99 is surely a writerto watch. dreamy and indelibly creepy.
Abraham Lincoln’s son dies youngand Exit West. By Mohsin Hamid. Riverhead; 240 Compass. By Mathias Enard. Translated by
enters a multi-chorus Buddhistic un- pages; $26. Hamish Hamilton; £14.99 Charlotte Mandell. New Directions; 464
derworld. One ofthe year’s most original Asharply pointed story about migration pages; $26.95. Fitzcarraldo Editions; £14.99
and electrifyingnovels.
that came within a whiskerofwinning the Overone night a French scholarmuses on
White Tears. By Hari Kunzru. Knopf; 288 2017 Man Bookerprize forfiction. The the differences between West and East.
pages; $26.95. Hamish Hamilton; £14.99 authorof“The Reluctant Fundamentalist” The winnerofthe 2015 PrixGoncourt on
ALondonernow livingin New York, Hari has written anothernovel ofourtime. love, longingand otherness.
Kunzru introduces two unforgettable
characters to illustrate how blackmusic Books by Economist writers in 2017
came to be imbued with the spirit ofthe
blues. His imagery resonates with the What we wrote...
racial politics ofmodern life.
Austral. By Paul McAuley. Gollancz; 288
pages; £14.99 ...when we weren’tin the office
Achase thrillerset in late 21st-century The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power and Treasure Palaces: Great Writers Visit Great
Antarctica that combines elements ofJack its Absence in the Twenty-First Century. Museums. Edited by Maggie Fergusson.
London, J.G. Ballard and William Gibson. By Ryan Avent. St Martin’s Press; 288 pages, Economist Books; 221pages; $16.99 and £8.99
Asignificant contribution to writing about $26.99. Allen Lane; £9.99 An anthology ofmeditations on muse-
the anthropocene.
The world ofworkis changingfast—and ums that have moved great writers,
The Seventh Function of Language. By not as you would expect, by ourFree edited by the literary editorofour former
Laurent Binet. Translated by Sam Taylor. Exchange columnist. lifestyle magazine, Intelligent Life.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 368 pages; $27. Year of Wonder: Classical Music for Every Megatech: Technology in 2050. Edited by
Harvill Secker; £16.99 Day. By Clemency Burton-Hill. Headline Daniel Franklin. Economist Books; $18.99
Aconspiracy thrillerabout the death of Home; 448 pages; £20 and £15
the French literary theorist, Roland Like a regulardose ofmeditation or Technology moves fast. Twenty experts
Barthes, that draws on the workofJacques mindfulness, a daily encounterwith identify where it will take us by 2050.
Derrida and Dan Brown with tongue classical music enriches one’s life in all Compiled by ourexecutive editor.
firmly in cheek—to hilarious effect.
kinds ofways. By a frequent freelance District VIII. By Adam Lebor. Head of Zeus;
The Golden Legend. By Nadeem Aslam. contributor. 358 pages; £18.99. To be published in June
Knopf; 319 pages; $27.95. Faber & Faber; How Long Will Israel Survive? The Threat 2018 in America by Pegasus Books; $25.95
£16.99 Agritty crime thriller, set in Hungary. By a
Too much political exposition can be the from Within. By Gregg Carlstrom. Oxford long-standingfreelance contributor to
University Press; 256 pages; $24.95. Hurst; £20
death offiction. Not so here. In his fifth Ournew Cairo correspondent counts the ourforeign pages.
novel, a British-Pakistani writeroffers a cost ofacute social tensions in Israel and
richly imagined lesson in how to make the occupation ofthe West Bank. The Struggle for Catalonia. By Raphael
great literature out ofdespotism. Minder. Hurst; 256 pages; £15.99
Game Query: The Mind-Stretching Econo- How Catalonia differs from Spain—and
mist Quiz. Edited by Philip Coggan. With why. By a regularcontributor.
contributions from Geoffrey Carr, Josie Forgotten Continent: A History of the New
Delap, John Prideaux and Simon Wright. Latin America. By Michael Reid. Yale Univer-
Economist Books; 224 pages; £8.99 sity Press; 440 pages; $18 and £12.99
The first quiz bookin our175-yearhistory, Acompletely revised and updated edi-
with suggestions from the staff. Edited by tion ofa bookthat was originally pub-
ourButtonwood columnist. lished in 2007, by ourBello columnist
The Fate of the West: The Battle to Save and formerAmericas editor.
the World’s Most Successful Political Superfast Primetime Ultimate Nation:
Idea. By Bill Emmott. Economist Books; 272 The Relentless Invention of Modern India.
pages; $28. Profile Books; £20 By Adam Roberts. PublicAffairs; 336 pages;
What the world should do when faced $28. Profile Books; £16.99
with political instability and economic How India joined the modern world, by
stress, by a formereditor-in-chief. ourformerDelhi bureau chiefwho is
now Europe business correspondent.
The Monkman and Seagull Quiz Book. By
Eric Monkman and Bobby Seagull. Eyewear Here Comes Trouble. By Simon Wroe. Wei-
Publishing; 312 pages; £12.99 denfeld & Nicolson; 289 pages; £12.99
Over500 questions to test all knowledge, Acoming-of-age novel set in the secret
both general and specialised. By a former fictional state ofKyrzbekistan, by a free-
Marjorie Deane intern and his co-au- lance contributorand the authorof
thor—rival captains on “University Chal- “Chop Chop”, which was shortlisted for
lenge”, a British television show. the Costa first novel award in 2014.