Joanna Kavenna

Una guía sobre la realidad tiene comoprotagonista a Eliade Jencks, una jovende vocación académica frustrada queun día queda encargada de recuperar laobra capital del profesor Solete, su amigoy mentor recientemente fallecido: untexto definitivo sobre la naturaleza de larealidad. La pesquisa la lleva a revisar todotipo de teorias sobre el mundo, la luz yla apariencia de las cosas, y a encontrar,finalmente, una verdad inesperada.

Una joven londinense, abandonada por su marido por ser estéril, decide retirarse al campo. Va a convivir y trabajar con Cassandra White, una vieja granjera ecologista y con muy malas pulgas, que vive en un valle espectacular en el Distrito de los Lagos. Un lugar lleno de segundas viviendas de lujo, vacias la mayor parte del año, y de campesinos pobres que estan a punto de perder sus casas. Asi surge un plan utopico para devolver el valle a los vecinos. Y una historia de amor. Venid hasta el borde, les dijo es una satira desternillante que, mientras nos hace reir, nos muestra lo que puede suceder cuando las desigualdades sociales se vuelven insostenibles.

Rosa Lane is a fashionable journalist in her thirties, already the picture of London achievement. Her handsome boyfriend is something in politics and her other friends are confident, prosperous and ambitious. But one afternoon, staring at her computer screen at work, she fails to see the point, walks out of her job - and begins her long fall from modern grace.

In Vienna, in 1865, Ignaz Semmelweis has been hounded into a lunatic asylum, ridiculed for his claim that doctors unwashed hands are the root cause of childbed fever. The deaths of thousands of mothers are on his conscience and his dreams are filled with blood. In 2153, humans are birthed and raised in breeding centres, nurtured by strangers and deprived of familial love. Miraculously, a woman conceives, and Prisoner 730004 stands trial for concealing it. In London in 2009, Michael Stone''s novel about Semmelweis has been published, after years of rejection. But while Michael absorbs his disconcerting success, his estranged mother is dying and asks to see him again. As Michael vacillates, Brigid Hayes, exhausted and uncertain whether she can endure the trials ahead, begins the labour of her second child. Through the interwoven stories of these four characters, The Birth of Love explores the intense, conflicting emotions of motherhood as few contemporary novels have dared to do. A beautifully constructed and immensely powerful work, it is also a story of rebellion, isolation and the damage done by rigid ideologies. It confirms Joanna Kavenna, winner of the Orange New Writers Award for Inglorious, as one of the most ambitious and talented authors writing today

Self-anointed guru of the Digital Age, Guy Matthias, CEO of Beetle, has become one of the world's most powerful and influential figures. Untaxed and ungoverned, his trans-Atlantic company essentially operates beyond the control of Governments or the law.But trouble is never far away, and for Guy a perfect storm is brewing: his wife wants to leave him, fed up with his serial infidelities; malfunctioning Beetle software has led to some unfortunate deaths which are proving hard to cover up; his longed for deal with China is proving troublingly elusive and, among other things, the mystery hacker, Gogol, is on his trail.With the clock ticking- Guy, his aide Douglas Varley, Britain's flailing female PM, conflicted national security agent Eloise Jayne, depressed journalist David Strachey, and Gogol, whoever that may be - the question is becoming ever more pressing, how do you live in reality when nobody knows anything, and all knowledge, all certainty, is partly or entirely fake?

A darkly ironic novel of ideas, a dystopia, and an absurdist thriller, from the award-winning novelistSelf-anointed guru of the Digital Age, Guy Matthias, CEO of Beetle, has become one of the worlds most powerful and influential figures.

Rosa Lane is a fashionable journalist in her thirties, already the picture of London achievement. Her handsome boyfriend is something in politics and her other friends are confident, prosperous and ambitious. But one afternoon, staring at her computer screen at work, she fails to see the point, walks out of her job - and begins her long fall from modern grace.

Vienna1865: Dr Ignaz Semmelweis has been hounded into a lunatic asylum, ridiculed for his claim that doctors unwashed hands are the root cause of childbed fever. The deaths of thousands of mothers are on his conscience and his dreams are filled with blood. 2153: humans are birthed and raised in breeding centres, nurtured by strangers and deprived of familial love. Miraculously, a woman conceives, and Prisoner 730004 stands trial for concealing it.London in 2009: Michael Stones novel about Semmelweis has been published, after years of rejection. But while Michael absorbs his disconcerting success, his estranged mother is dying and asks to see him again. As Michael vacillates, Brigid Hayes, exhausted and uncertain whether she can endure the trials ahead, begins the labour of her second child.A beautifully constructed and immensely powerful work about motherhood that is also a story of rebellion, isolation and the damage done by rigid ideologies.

Fun and eruditeSunday TimesSnort-inducingly funny Daily MailOne of the cleverest books youll read this yearTelegraphA darkly ironic novel of ideas, a dystopia, and an absurdist thriller, from the award-winning novelistSelf-anointed guru of the Digital Age, Guy Matthias, CEO of Beetle, has become one of the worlds most powerful and influential figures. Untaxed and ungoverned, his trans-Atlantic company essentially operates beyond the control of Governments or the law.But trouble is never far away, and for Guy a perfect storm is brewing: his wife wants to leave him, fed up with his serial infidelities; malfunctioning Beetle software has led to some unfortunate deaths which are proving hard to cover up; his longed for deal with China is proving troublingly elusive and, among other things, the mystery hacker, Gogol, is on his trail. With the clock ticking- Guy, his aide Douglas Varley, Britains flailing female PM, conflicted national security agent Eloise Jayne, depressed journalist David Strachey, and Gogol, whoever that may be - the question is becoming ever more pressing, how do you live in reality when nobody knows anything, and all knowledge, all certainty, is partly or entirely fake?

Smart, strange, coping with death through Light Margaret AtwoodExtraordinary, wise, funny, adventurous A. L. KennedySo utterly startling and inventive, its almost an act of resistance Miriam ToewsI couldnt put it down. A cult following seems certainLiterary ReviewRefreshing as well as disconcerting to read a novel that sets aside convention so resolutelyGuardianOpts to push the boundaries of what the novel isTelegraphA comic metaphysical thrillerScotland on Sunday In this darkly ironic novel - a quest for truth, a satire, an elegy - Joanna Kavenna displays fearless originality and wit in confronting the strangeness of reality and how we contend with the death of those we love. Beautiful, ethereal drawings by Oly Ralfe illustrate this haunting journey through time, space and human understanding.

Joanna Kavenna went north in search of the Atlantis of the Arctic, the mythical land of Thule. Seen once by an Ancient Greek explorer and never found again, mysterious Thule came to represent the vast and empty spaces of the north. Fascinated for many years by Arctic places, Kavenna decided to travel through the lands that have been called Thule, from Shetland to Iceland, Norway, Estonia, and Greenland. On her journey, she found traces of earlier writers and travellers, all compelled by the idea of a land called Thule: Richard Francis Burton, William Morris, Anthony Trollope, as well as the Norwegian Polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen. She met wilderness-lovers; poets writing epics about ice; Inuit musicians and Polar scientists trying to understand the silent snows. But she came to discover that a darkness also inhabits Thule: the Thule Society, obsessed with the purity of the Nordic peoples; the war children - the surviving progeny of Nazi attempts to foster an Aryan race; as well as ice-bound relics of the Cold War. Finally she arrived in Svalbard, a beautiful Arctic archipelago, at the edge of the frozen ocean. Blending travelogue, reportage, memoir, and literary essay, Joanna Kavenna explores the changing life of the far North in the 20th Century. The Ice Museum is a mesmerising story of idealism and ambition, wars and destruction, survival and memories, set against the haunting backdrop of the northern landscape.

«Ingeniosa, hilarante, provocativa.»The Independent«Brillante, a veces salvaje.»Literary Review«Excelente. Estuve riendo durante toda la novela y el final me conmovió. Y qué estilo. Un puño de hierro

Take one narrator in retreat from suburban life, a shambolic draughty farmhouse in a scenic valley, two psychotic goats, one banker, a village-full of empty second homes and scores of poor and elderly people with nowhere to go. Take one widowed survivalist called Cassandra White. Take an escalating state of hostilities between the haves who dont even use what they have, and the have-nots who decide theyre sick of having nothing at all. Take one crazy scheme to reclaim the valley for the locals. What do you get? A hilarious, timely satire from Joanna Kavenna, the prize-winning author of Inglorious and The Birth of Love...

As heard on BBC R4s Start the Week, hilarious, insightful and supremely intelligent writingWhat a writer. ALI SMITHEndlessly inventiveTHE TIMESThoroughly pleasurableDAILY TELEGRAPHOne of the most brilliant British writers working today.SPECTATORWho decides the rules of the games we play?In August 2007, or thereabouts, a young philosopher leaves Oslo, heading for Greece, on a mission to find Theodoros Apostolakis, the head of the Society of Lost Things. Fortunately, Apostolakis isnt lost, but everything else is: ancient libraries, entire civilisations, priceless books and a beautiful box, once used to play the world-famous game of Seven. The hunt for this small thing, among the countless lost things, becomes an absurdist quest through time and space: from the earliest human societies to the advent of AI.Told, shared and mythologised by our narrator, along with a wild cast of dreamers, philosophers, poets, rebels and optimists, Seven is an extraordinary, uplifting journey through an ever darkening world.