Piranesi

The spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, 'one of our greatest living authors' New York Magazine

Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has.

In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.

Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims?

Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous.

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

*****

'What a world Susanna Clarke conjures into being . Piranesi is an exquisite puzzle-box' DAVID MITCHELL
'It subverts expectations throughout . Utterly otherworldly' Guardian
'Piranesi astonished me. It is a miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling' MADELINE MILLER
'Brilliantly singular' Sunday Times
'A gorgeous, spellbinding mystery . This book is a treasure, washed up upon a forgotten shore, waiting to be discovered' ERIN MORGENSTERN
'Head-spinning . Fully imagined and richly evoked' Telegraph

Reminds us of fiction's power to take us to another world and expand our understanding of this one, Guardian, Autumn highlights

Like a thriller . Compelling . A fever dream - disorientating, engrossing, persistently strange . It burrows into the subconscious, throwing out puzzles long after the final page . Brilliantly singular

, Sunday Times

Brilliantly peculiar . It subverts expectations throughout . Utterly otherworldly

, Guardian

A gently comic, thoroughly beguiling read . The 'House' - its upper rooms lost in clouds, its lower chambers drowned by the sea - will haunt my dreams, Daily Mail

The most curious confection . Blending elements of mythology and fantasy, with nods along the way to CS Lewis and Tolkien . Genuinely moving climax that throws open the doors of the halls in more ways than one, i paper

Her prowess as a stylist is undiminished . Piranesi's naively observant voice also nods to the narrators of those Enlightenment parables of flawed Reason lost amid marvels and monsters - think Defoe's Crusoe, Swift's Gulliver, Voltaire's Candide, The Arts Desk

Close to perfect ... Full of wonders and an infectious ecstasy ... Clarke has the same skill Flann O'Brien poured into The Third Policeman for making insane worlds feel as solid as our own, Sunday Times

A novel to revisit - a house you can open again, with statues touched by quiet thoughts and strange tides ... To read Piranesi is to be the labyrinth and the traveller in the labyrinth, which is poetry and prose, Observer

Piranesi astonished me. It is a miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling, at once a gripping mystery, an adventure through a brilliant new fantasy world, and a deep meditation on the human condition: feeling lost, and being found. I already want to be back in its haunting and beautiful halls! -- MADELINE MILLER

Close to perfect ... As a work of fiction, it's spectacular; an irresistibly unspooling mystery set in a world of original strangeness, revealing a set of ideas that will stay lodged in your head long after you've finished reading, The Times

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