Author:Thomas Pynchon
By far the shortest of Pynchon's great, dazzling novels - and one of the best.
Suffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humour, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover's estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually, death, drugs, madness and marriage combine to leave Oepida in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting The Crying of Lot 49.
'Engineered like a rocket' Ned Beauman, Independent
'The best book to start with' Guardian
The best American novel I have read since the war
—— Frank KermodeFor the reader who has yet to make acquaintance with this important comic talent. . . an appropriate introduction...defiantly, purposefully outrageous
—— SpectatorThe Crying of Lot 49 contains some of the most elegiac writing about America since Fitzgerald, as well as packing an intense metaphorical punch about revelation, hierophany, meaning and connection that is far too complex to reduce to precis
—— ObserverThe narrator sounds like a survivor looking through the massed wreckage of his civilization, 'a salad of despair'. That image, to suggest but one of the puns in the word Tristero, is typically full of sadness, terror, love, and flamboyance. But then, how else should one imagine a tryst with America? And that is what this novel is.
—— New York TimesA book of thundering originality and depth and lyricism, a book with the highest intellectual aspirations - and yet it also seemed to be concerned with creating genuine suspense
—— Ned Beauman , IndependentFrank, funny and unputdownable . . . behind the glitter and the justice, everyone is tarnished and compromised - including even our narrator. Kaplan, with her sharp and nuanced eye, sees it all, and tells it brilliantly
—— Claire Messud, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman UpstairsDeliciously sharp, ridiculously funny, and surprisingly heartfelt . . . I cannot wait to discuss it with everyone I know
—— Coco Mellors, author of Cleopatra and FrankensteinBrilliantly deadpan and spiky in all the right ways. An accurate, darkly funny but also brutal portrayal of everyday workplace and world power dynamics. I couldn't put it down
—— Emily Itami, Costa-shortlisted author of Fault LinesWith her sun-bleached Hollywood setting, Kaplan transports us to another world - one which is achingly familiar. A novel which makes us examine our own complicity, while also weaving in threads of tenderness, drive and office-based humour which at times feels delightfully absurd . . . I inhaled this book - and came up for air still reeling
—— Katie Hale, author of My Name is MonsterAmbition bites back in Isabel Kaplan's Not Safe For Work, a novel that hits close to a few recent news events . . . So visceral is the narrator's voice that every time I opened the book felt like sliding into uncomfortable heels. Brave
—— New York TimesAn intoxicating exploration of male-dominated workplaces . . . NSFW is gripping, with a lot to unpack, making it excellent book-club fodder
—— TIME, Best Books of July 2022An energetic page-turner with plenty of delicious insights into Hollywood . . . and countless witty, wry passages
—— Jewish ChronicleFrank, funny and unputdownable, Isabel Kaplan's NSFW takes you on an ambitious young woman's wild ride through Hollywood. Her mother's a famous feminist lawyer, and she's a rising executive star, mistress of her destiny. But behind the glitter and the justice, everyone is tarnished and compromised - including even our narrator. Kaplan, with her sharp and nuanced eye, sees it all, and tells it brilliantly.
—— Claire Messud , -A frank account of the inherent filthiness of leaning in. A study of the psychological, and at times literal, gymnastics that are required of striving women.
—— Raven Leilaini , -I read this steely investigation of workplace ambition and patriarchal complicity in one sitting, my alliances shifting with every page. Funny, insightful, and enraging in all the best ways, NSFW is a fiercely smart debut that turns its gaze back on the reader, forcing you to ask just how far you'd go - and who you'd throw under the bus - for a seat at the table.
—— Julie Buntin , -A stunning portrayal of intergenerational family love and the complications of the human condition. I was swept up in the world of the Aylward women: in their power and pain and mostly, in their fierce resilience. A novel full of compassion and honesty, where love triumphs. The prose is pitch perfect.
—— ELAINE FEENEYHymn to the warp and woof of life; celebration of the flip-flop way of family; soaring testimony to the endurance of the human spirit. And all delivered with his trademark compassion, empathy, humour and brio. A gift of a book.
—— ALAN McMONAGLEA compelling read
—— SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINEBig-hearted, generous and brimful of emotion, this is a gorgeous, life-enhancing novel.
—— Mail on SundayRyan's writing is like poetry and he has a real gift for creating characters who live in full technicolour. Highly recommend
—— Good HousekeepingIn Ryan's hands the mundane and the everyday is transformed into a thing of beauty, thrumming with significance.
—— REFINERY 29Tender with comic observation ... a topsy-turvy emotional rollercoaster
—— DAILY MAILMagical
—— OBSERVERExquisitely rendered. It reads like musical sounds, full of light and lilting melody...it's funny and sad, and sparks with the most tremendous, tart, wit.
—— INewsThe characters are compelling and vividly drawn, the dialogue is profane and frequently hilarious; the prose drips like honey off a spoon.
—— SUNDAY TIMESA jewel of a novel that will surely become a classic... enthralling and unmissable
—— DAILY EXPRESS, 'Fiction Highlights of 2022'A celebration of love and loyalty among women.
—— IRISH INDEPENDENTBig-hearted, generous and brimful of emotion, this a gorgeous, life-enhancing read
—— IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAYIt is a beaut. It's a celebration of women and of womanhood. I see my mother in this, I see my sister ... This book is a joy.
—— RYAN TUBRIDYIf language - lyric, lovely and funny, steeped in County Tipperary - and women (men come and go, rarely center a chapter and are often useless, sometimes cruel) are of no interest to you, The Queen of Dirt Island is not your next read. Ryan's book is a celebration, in an embroidered, unrestrained, joyful, aphoristic and sometimes profane style, of both ... The Queen of Dirt Island gives the women their due, and the reader is rewarded.
—— NEW YORK TIMESDonal Ryan's The Queen of Dirt Island is a little Irish miracle ... there's as much implicit wisdom in these pages about how to live as how to write ... Ryan has his own emotional range and a way of capturing the largeness of what look like tiny lives but aren't
—— WASHINGTON POSTAmbitious, unsettling and funny, this book is full of desire and mischief with surprising results.
—— Platinum, *Summer Reads of 2022*