Hardback: All civilisations think they are invulnerable. History warns us none is.
1468. A young priest, Christopher Fairfax, arrives in a remote Exmoor village to conduct the funeral of his predecessor. The land around is strewn with ancient artefacts – coins, fragments of glass, human bones – which the old parson used to collect. Did his obsession with the past lead to his death?
As Fairfax is drawn more deeply into the isolated community, everything he believes – about himself, his faith and the history of his world – is tested to destruction.
"All of my books are about power," Robert Harris acknowledged in an interview once. To this effect, The Second Sleep (2019) is a contemplative dystopian story set in Britain 800 years into the post-Apocalypse future, but which alternates between current times and the late Middle Ages.
About the author: Robert Harris was born in Nottingham in 1957, later studying English at Cambridge University. He is the author of twelve bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy - Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator - Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Conclave and most recently, Munich. Several of his books have been filmed, including The Ghost, which was directed by Roman Polanski. His work has been translated into forty languages and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby.
Rating: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment