The Bone Clocks

Longlisted for the Booker Prize

David Mitchell author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Hodder & Stoughton

Published:18th Jun '15

£9.99

Available for dispatch around 4th April 2024.

The Bone Clocks cover

The dazzling new novel from the author of Cloud Atlas, at once the kaleidoscopic story of an unusual woman's life, a metaphysical thriller and a profound meditation on mortality and survival.

'ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY' INDEPENDENT
Winner of the World Fantasy Award and longlisted for the Booker and Folio Prizes
'A triumph'
GUARDIAN

'Fantastical'
OBSERVER

'Epic'
EVENING STANDARD

'Mind-spinning'
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

'Dazzling'
NEW YORK TIMES

The internationally bestselling novel from the author of Cloud Atlas, at once the kaleidoscopic story of an unusual woman's life, a metaphysical thriller and a profound meditation on mortality and survival
Run away, one drowsy summer's afternoon, with Holly Sykes: wayward teenager, broken-hearted rebel and unwitting pawn in a titanic, hidden conflict.

Over six decades, the consequences of a moment's impulse unfold, drawing an ordinary woman into a world far beyond her imagining. And as life in the near future turns perilous, the pledge she made to a stranger may become the key to her family's survival . . .

PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL
'A thrilling and gifted writer'
FINANCIAL TIMES

'Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good'
DAILY MAIL

'Mitchell is, clearly, a genius'
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

'An author of extraordinary ambition and skill'
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

'A superb storyteller'
THE NEW YORKER

An epic in many voices . . . a globe-trotting, mind-bending, hair-raising triumph * Guardian *
He is funny, hip and full of life . . . abeautiful explosion of adventurous ideas * The Times *
If only real life were as elegant and generally encouraging as a Mitchell novel! He writes with scintillating verve and abundance * Daily Telegraph *
600 pages of metafictional shenanigans in relentlessly brilliant prose . . . Death is at the heart of this novel. And there lies its depth and darkness, bravely concealed with all the wit and sleight of hand and ventriloquistic verbiage and tale-telling bravura of which Mitchell is a master . . . It's a whopper of a story -- Ursula K. Le Guin * Guardian *
Fantastical, ambitious, bold and exuberant -- Viv Groskop, Books of the Year * Observer *
An epic read * Evening Standard *
No one, clearly, has ever told Mitchell that the novel is dead. He writes with a furious intensity and slapped-awake vitality, with a delight in language and all the rabbit holes of experience -- Pico Iyer * New York Times Book Review *
A mind-spinning, genre-splicing time-travelling epic * Independent on Sunday *
Mitchell's mesmerizing saga is evidence of the power of story to transport us, and even to stop time entirely * Vanity Fair *
An extraordinary piece of storytelling -- Books of the Year * Evening Standard *
A return to the exuberance and genre-hopping of Cloud Atlas, and a proper page-turner -- Stephanie Merritt, Books of the Year * Observer *
Mitchell is a consummate craftsman . . . For sci-fi fantasists, the imaginary world Mitchell creates might be a thing of wonder, a Dungeons and Dragons for literate grown-ups. For others, I suspect the flesh and blood anguish of a long life lived well against the odds will prove the greater pleasure * Independent *
Every page fizzes with energy and humour. Wildly imaginative and truly magical, this is a big, chunky feast of a book * Sunday Mirror *
Dazzling . . . Mitchell's heavy arsenal of talents is showcased in these pages: his symphonic imagination; his ventriloquist's ability to channel the voices of myriad characters from different time zones and cultures; his intuitive understanding of children and knack for capturing their solemnity and humor; and his ear for language - its rhythms, sounds and inflections -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times *
Intellectually rigorous and stunningly imaginative . . . a rich and dense, inventive and witty thriller * Daily Express *
With The Bone Clocks, Mitchell rises to meet and match the legacy of Cloud Atlas . . . interconnected lives stretch across time; human contact is both frightening and vital. This novel electrifyingly unites Mitchell's fictions into one universe while telling the story of Holly Sykes, an ordinary young woman whose chance encounters give her life meaning * Los Angeles Times *
At once a gripping thriller and a far-out fantasy, a brilliant mash-up that pulsates with energy, satire and wit * Tatler *
Combines fantastic inventiveness with depth and heart -- Books of the Year * Guardian *
A divinely inventive author . . . This new novel offers up a rich selection of domestic realism, gothic fantasy and apocalyptic speculation, stretching around the world from the Margaret Thatcher era of the 1980s to the Endarkenment of 2043 . . . Some of these narrators are moving and sympathetic; others radiate the metastasizing creepiness of a Patricia Highsmith villain * Washington Post *
If I could file a review that consisted only of the word "wow" 900 times over, it still wouldn't quite capture my delirious response to David Mitchell's stunning, funny, sad, prophetic, fantastical, satirical, achingly real and gloriously fictitious new novel * Scotsman *
It's massively bold and ambitious, but also thoroughly readable, funnyand moving * Heat *
Our most accomplished inventor of multitudinous worlds, which are filled with complex, vital people . . . The Bone Clocks features a gyre-works inventiveness that's well matched by (bizarrely) cerebral substance . . . his most sinewy, fine and full book to date, a Mobius strip-tripping great novel that will reward bleary-eyed rereading * Financial Times *
One of the most entertaining and thrilling novels I've read in a long time . . . an extraordinary fun house of a novel -- Meg Wolitzer * NPR *
A ludicrously ambitious, unstoppably clever epic told through a chorus of diverse narrators that is both outrageous in scope and meticulous in execution * The Atlantic *
Is The Bone Clocks the most ambitious novel ever written, or just the most Mitchell-esque? . . . From gritty realism to far-out fantasy, each section has its own charm and surprises. With its wayward thoughts, chance meetings, and attention to detail, Mitchell's novel is a thing of beauty * Publishers Weekly *
Great story, great words, all good * Stephen King *
Great fun . . . a tour de force * San Francisco Chronicle *
Mitchell is one of the most electric writers alive. To open a Mitchell book is to set forth on an adventure . . . In his latest novel, The Bone Clocks, Mitchell has spun his most far-flung tale yet . . . Strange and magical * Boston Globe *
Mind-bendingly ambitious . . . The force of [Mitchell's] storytelling makes The Bone Clocks a joy * Time *
Mitchell is a superb storyteller . . . One of the reasons he is such a popular and critically lauded writer is that he combines both the giddy, freewheeling ceaselessness of the pure storyteller with the grounded realism of the humanist. There's something for everyone, traditionalist or postmodernist, realist or fantasist * New Yorker *
Magical . . . [it] perfectly illustrates the idea that we're all the heroes of our own lives as well as single cogs in a much larger and more beautiful mechanism * Entertainment Weekly *
Deeply meaningful . . . The Bone Clocks has everything you might expect to find in a David Mitchell novel: Great characters in settings far-flung over space and time, all tied together by ambitious ideas and gorgeous writing * BuzzFeed *
A sweeping epic . . . that, like Cloud Atlas, spans the ages and tinkers with the hidden gears of human history * GQ *

  • Long-listed for Man Booker Prize 2014 (UK)
  • Long-listed for Folio Prize 2015 (UK)

ISBN: 9780340921623

Dimensions: 198mm x 135mm x 42mm

Weight: 444g

640 pages