Author:Thomas Hardy

With an essay by Robert Langbaum.
'Here - I am waiting to know about this offer of mine. The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?'
In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper.
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
A complete delight... Ancient myth meets daily grind, and the ordinary and the fantastic... are mingled everywhere you look
—— Boyd Tonkin , IndependentDelightful, unforgettable and splendidly peculiar
—— SpectatorMedvei's prose is limpid and particular, telling the story with an exquisite control that interfuses the sublime and ridiculous in exact proportions, the one hidden inside the other... The result is pleasurable and profound. Medvei never puts a foot wrong
—— Times Literary SupplementMedvei's fable about the inexplicable nature of human passion unfolds with a gentle surrealism
—— Financial TimesThis absolutely engrossing tale is written with serene poise
—— Sunday TimesBy the end, as with the French classic The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the novel emerges as a cautionary tale of such subtlety that its truths - about dependency, love and ownership - are made bearable by the manner of their telling. And by their philosophical charm - which is Medvei's gift
—— Tom Adair , ScotsmanThe most affectionate literary portrait since Bottom was 'translated' in A Midsummer Night's Dream
—— Michael Arditti , Daily MailIt's short and definitely a page-turner - but with lingering thoughtfulness, rather than the rush-through-discard-immediately feel of some fast-paced books… He certainly knows how to craft a novel so that the reader rushes through, loving every moment, curious as to what the next page will hold
—— Stuck in a Book (blog)This is a wildly entertaining book but, beware, it also bites
—— Neel MukherjeeAchingly funny, touching and fizzing with intelligence, this book will have you laughing out loud even as you fear for the state of world politics
—— Tash AwA delicious bon-bon of a book, skewering Pakistani society.Great good fun
—— . - Daniyal Mueenuddin, author of In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, shortlisted for the National Book AwardIn Makkai's picaresque first novel, Lucy, a 26-year-old children's librarian, "borrows" her favorite patron, bright, book-loving 10-year-old Ian, after his fundamentalist parents enroll him in a program meant to "cure" his nascent homosexuality.
—— BooklistHis biggest, most ambitious and most engaging novel to date
—— The TimesPsychological acuity, a wonderful linguistic precision and the ability to make beautiful accordance between form and content via thoughtful narrative experiment. Gods without Men is a step further along the road towards the full realisation of Kunzru's early promise. It makes undeniable the claim that he is one of our most important novelists . . . As large and cruel and real as life
—— Independent on SundayAmbitiously eclectic . . . smartly sharp social detail, high-fidelity dialogue, vivid evocation of place . . . ironic wit and exuberant guyings of paranormal gobbledegook
—— The Sunday TimesFuelled by an energetic intelligence. Along with a love of big ideas came narrative zest, verbal and comic flair, and an acute eye for contemporary mores both East and West . . . Gods with Men marks another new and bold departure . . . This really is Kunru's great American novel . . . Compulsively readable, skilfully orchestrated, Kunzru's American odyssey brings a new note into his underlying preoccupation with human identity'
—— IndependentBeing able to create a vivid sense of place is one of the hallmarks of a quality literary writer, but few could have done so as brilliantly as Hari Kunzru in his latest novel Gods without Men
—— Big IssueIntensely involving . . . Gods Without Men is one of the best novels of the year
—— Daily Telegraph






