Comedian Paul Scheer, host of the How Did This Get Made podcast, writes a tender, heartbreaking and hilarious memoir recounting how creativity and imagination saved him from abusive situations.
Usually I go for books based on character first, but this one grabbed me with its incredible and fascinating post-apocalyptic world building. There are no zombies in this one, and most of the scary stuff is long over, but imagining how ordinary people rebuild and reform community in a post-virus world had me absolutely hooked. Life and art-affirming post-apocalypse was not what I was expecting!
'Best novel. The big one . . . stands above all the others' - George R.R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones
Now an HBO Max original TV series
The New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction National Book Awards Finalist PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist
What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.
One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in…
Junior archivist Jess Novak is struggling to find her footing in her new job. Her colleagues undermine her, her boss hates her, and her only romantic prospect hides a whiskey bottle in his desk. When Jess discovers a series of mysterious letters chronicling life in Paris at the start of the Great War she thinks she’s landed her ticket to career advancement. Breaking into the art vault to do more digging, she stumbles upon a colleague’s body.
As if that isn’t frightening enough, Jess is being stalked by a menacing figure. It’s only when Jess connects the letters, the murder, and a priceless Rembrandt, that she realizes just how high the stakes are. Can Jess salvage her career, unravel a mystery, shake her stalker, solve a murder, and save her life?
