Synopses & Reviews
Now a major motion picture
Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize
New York Times bestseller
“Extreme times call for extreme reactions, extreme writing. Hamid has done something extraordinary with this novel.” —Washington Post
“One of those achingly assured novels that makes you happy to be a reader.” —Junot Diaz
At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful encounter . . .
Changez is living an immigrants dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by an elite valuation firm. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore.
But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his relationship with Erica shifting. And Changezs own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.
“Brief, charming, and quietly furious . . . a resounding success.” —Village Voice
A Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
A New York Times Notable Book
Review
PRAISE FOR THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALISTElegant and chilling . . . his tale [has] an Arabian Nightsstyle urgency: the end of the story may mean the death of the teller.”The New York Times Book Review
Slender, smart, and subversive.”Entertainment Weekly
Changezs voice is extraordinary. Cultivated, restrained, yet also barbed and passionate, it evokes the power of butler Stevens in Kazuo Ishiguros The Remains of the Day.”The Seattle Times
A searing and powerful account of a Pakistani in New York after 9/11.”Mira Nair, director of The Namesake
Synopsis
Mark Helprin's acclaimed novel is now a major motion picture starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, Eva Marie Saint, and Russell Crowe. Written and directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind), in theatres February 14, 2014.
Synopsis
Mark Helprin's acclaimed novel is now a major motion picture starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, Eva Marie Saint, and Russell Crowe. Written and directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (
A Beautiful Mind), in theatres February 14, 2014. New York City is subsumed in arctic winds, dark nights, and white lights, its life unfolds, for it is an extraordinary hive of the imagination, the greatest house ever built, and nothing exists that can check its vitality. One night in winter, Peter Lake--orphan and master-mechanic, attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side.
Though he thinks the house is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the love between Peter Lake, a middle-aged Irish burglar, and Beverly Penn, a young girl, who is dying.
Peter Lake, a simple, uneducated man, because of a love that, at first he does not fully understand, is driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle, in a city ever alight with its own energy and beseiged by unprecedented winters, is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature.
Synopsis
Mark Helprins masterpiece will transport you to New York of the Belle Epoque, to a city clarified by a siege of unprecedented snows. One winter night, Peter Lake - master mechanic and second-storey man - attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side. Though he thinks it is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the affair between a middle-aged Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl dying of consumption. It is a love so powerful that Peter Lake, a simple and uneducated man, will be driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature.
Synopsis
Now a major motion picture New York Times bestseller "Utterly extraordinary . . . A piercing sense of the beautiful arising from narrative and emotional fantasy is everywhere alive in the novel . . . Not for some time have I read a work as funny, thoughtful, passionate or large-souled . . . I find myself nervous, to a degree I dont recall in my past as a reviewer, about failing the work, inadequately displaying its brilliance." - Benjamin DeMott, New York Times Book Review Mark Helprins masterpiece will transport you to New York of the Belle Epoque, to a city clarified by a siege of unprecedented snows. One winter night, Peter Lake - master mechanic and second-storey man - attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side. Though he thinks it is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the affair between a middle-aged Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl dying of consumption. It is a love so powerful that Peter Lake, a simple and uneducated man, will be driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature. "He creates tableaux of such beauty and clarity that the inner eye is stunned." - Publishers Weekly "This novel stretches the boundaries of contemporary literature. It is a gifted writers love affair with the language." - Newsday
Synopsis
From acclaimed novelist Mark Helprin, a lush, literary epic about love, beauty, and the world at war
Alessandro Giuliani, the young son of a prosperous Roman lawyer, enjoys an idyllic life full of privilege: he races horses across the country to the sea, he climbs mountains in the Alps, and, while a student of painting at the ancient university in Bologna, he falls in love. Then the Great War intervenes. Half a century later, in August of 1964, Alessandro, a white-haired professor, tall and proud, meets an illiterate young factory worker on the road. As they walk toward Monte Prato, a village seventy kilometers away, the old man—a soldier and a hero who became a prisoner and then a deserter, wandering in the hell that claimed Europe—tells him how he tragically lost one family and gained another. The boy, envying the richness and drama of Alessandro's experiences, realizes that this magnificent tale is not merely a story: it's a recapitulation of his life, his reckoning with mortality, and above all, a love song for his family.
Synopsis
Mohsin Hamid's best-selling novel is now a major motion picture directed by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) and starring Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, and Liev Schreiber
About the Author
MOHSIN HAMID's first novel, Moth Smoke, was a Betty Trask Award winner, PEN/ Hemingway Award finalist, and New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His second, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a bestseller in the United States and abroad, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. His most recent novel is How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. Hamid's writing has also appeared in Time, the New York Times, and other publications. He lives in Lahore, Pakistan.
Table of Contents
i. Rome, August 1
ii. Race to the Sea 94
iii. His Portrait When He Was Young 211
iv. The 19th River Guard 249
v. The Moon and the Bonfires 297
vi. Stella Maris 388
vii. A Soldier of the Line 490
viii. The Winter Palace 634
ix. La Tempesta 733
x. La Rondine 782