I like books that invite
us to face up to uncomfortable truths. And I love books that do this with
satire and humor.
This book is a beautifully written, absurdist commentary on American racism. The novel’s hilarious and absurd plot and its unreliable narrator open big windows to the realities of life in a society that so often chooses to deny, rather than to examine, the many ways in which racism fractures, lacerates and scars.
The humor of The
Sellout is smart, nonstop, dark, and painful. The author is direct and ruthless
as he revels in the high price a nation pays for failing to look honestly at
itself. This great book makes
you laugh until it hurts.
'Outrageous, hilarious and profound.' Simon Schama, Financial Times
'The longer you stare at Beatty's pages, the smarter you'll get.' Guardian
'The most badass first 100 pages of an American novel I've read.' New York Times
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game.
Born in Dickens on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles, the narrator of The Sellout spent his childhood as the subject in his father's racially charged…
This book is a clever look at the dark underbelly of the book publishing industry, the
destructiveness of social media, and the high cost of unbridled ambition. And
who better to escort us through this bleak landscape than a plagiarist who has
stolen her dead friend’s book manuscript and passed it off as her own?
The
narrator, June Hayward (AKA “Juniper Song,” to sound more Asian), isn’t just
unreliable; she’s loathsome. Her shifting justifications for her theft and
her lies are desperate, cynical, and unconvincing. In short, she is the ideal person
to take us on a tour of the caprice and hypocrisy of an industry that uses and manipulates
authors and in which bestsellers are not so much written by writers as they
are picked by publishers.
The No. 1 Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller from literary sensation R.F. Kuang
*A Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick*
'Propulsive' SUNDAY TIMES
'Razor-sharp' TIME
'A wild ride' STYLIST
'Darkly comic' GQ
'A riot' PANDORA SYKES
'Hard to put down, harder to forget' STEPHEN KING
Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.
White lies When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.
Dark humour But as evidence threatens June's stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she…
An extraterrestrial coming to
Earth and possessing a human body isn’t a new idea. That an advanced alien
civilization might seek to prevent a scientific breakthrough that humans are
not evolved enough to use wisely, well, that’s not new either.
But the social commentary of this book is poignant, insightful, and heartwarming. The alien arrives knowing little
about humanity, and at first, it is perplexed and disgusted. But as it lives
among humans, as the “husband” of his possessed victim’s wife and the “father”
of their son, it comes to appreciate the depth and complexity of what it means
to be a human.
While the alien remains bemused by our emotions, it also comes
to see that they are more than just the cause of so much of our absurdity. Our
emotions are also what makes us worth saving.
After an 'incident' one wet Friday night where he is found walking naked through the streets of Cambridge, Professor Andrew Martin is not feeling quite himself. Food sickens him. Clothes confound him. Even his loving wife and teenage son are repulsive to him. He feels lost amongst an alien species and hates everyone on the planet. Everyone, that is, except Newton, and he's a dog.
Who is he really? And what could make someone change their mind about the human race . . . ?
In a not-so-distant future, in a world
ravaged by climate change and invasive pests, humanity still chooses
self-deception over sacrifice.
Even the ubiquitous green flies buzzing around
our heads don’t concentrate our minds on what humanity’s survival requires.
When a sly US Senator and a jaded propagandist concoct a longshot and opportunistic
“environmentalist” campaign for the Presidency, it looks like just more of the
old, phony politics. But then things start to get real. And hilarious. And
hopeful.
Because the politicians and the propagandists start to care about the
planet, as they begin telling voters the truth, they also stop lying to
themselves.
