ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Roland Baines, a man of thwarted ambitions, has his life change forever when his wife up and leaves him with their new born son. Its 1986, Chernobyl is just starting to make the news as Roland finds himself under suspicion by the police for his wife's absence. This is not a thriller, but a thrilling epic tale of one man's life set against the turbulent later half of the 20th Century up to and including the present day. Powerful, moving and beautifully nuanced this is McEwan at his ultimate best. Greg
Epic, mesmerising and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times - a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one ordinary man
Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen books. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; Nutshell; and Machines Like Me, which was a number-one bestseller. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Roland Baines, a man of thwarted ambitions, has his life change forever when his wife up and leaves him with their new born son. Its 1986, Chernobyl is just starting to make the news as Roland finds himself under suspicion by the police for his wife's absence. This is not a thriller, but a thrilling epic tale of one man's life set against the turbulent later half of the 20th Century up to and including the present day. Powerful, moving and beautifully nuanced this is McEwan at his ultimate best. Greg
Lessons triumphantly achieves its primary aim of conveying the commonplace and wondrous intertwining of global history and everyday life. * Daily Telegraph * A tour de force of breadth... McEwan writes with invigorating alertness about social and political shifts over the past 70 years. * Sunday Times * Lessons is deep and wide, ambitious and humble, wise and substantial. It is, to my mind, McEwan's best novel in 20 years because it is so alert to human texture and complexity... It marks a significant new phase in McEwan's already astonishingly productive career. * New Statesman * One of his [McEwan's] most humane and agreeable [novels]. * Scotsman * [Lessons is] an epic tale with domesticity at its centre, encompassing a swathes of history, designed to make you think of the impact of events have on you and, in turn, the impact you make on the world. * List *