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Look Inside | Reading Guide
Reading Guide
Feb 25, 2003 | ISBN 9780385721790 Buy
Jun 17, 2014 | ISBN 9780375712470 Buy
May 20, 2003 | ISBN 9781400075553 Buy
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Feb 25, 2003 | ISBN 9780385721790
Jun 17, 2014 | ISBN 9780375712470
May 20, 2003 | ISBN 9781400075553
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness that provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from the acclaimed Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author. On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia’s childhood friend. But Briony’ s incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives. As it follows that crime’s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons, coming in September!
Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, this beautiful hardcover edition of the bestselling “tour de force” (The New York Times) is a profound—and profoundly moving—exploration of shame and forgiveness and the difficulty of absolution.On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony’s sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge. By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girl’s scheming imagination. And Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will color her entire life. In each of his novels Ian McEwan has brilliantly drawn his reader into the intimate lives and situations of his characters. But never before has he worked with so large a canvas: In Atonement he takes the reader from a manor house in England in 1935 to the retreat from Dunkirk in 1941; from the London’s World War II military hospitals to a reunion of the Tallis clan in 1999.Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons, coming in September!
IAN MCEWAN is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen novels and two short story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time,… More about Ian McEwan
"The engrossing new novel by the winner of the 1998 Booker Prize “hauls a defining part of the British literary tradition up to and into the 21st century.” –Geoff Dyer, The Guardian“It is rare for a critic to feel justified in using the word “masterpiece,” but Ian McEwan’s new book really deserves to be called one…Atonement is a work of astonishing depth and humanity… This novel really is worthy of the Booker.” –The Economist“The narrative, as always with McEwan, smoulders with slow-burning menace. the book is magically readable and never has McEwan shown himself to be more in sympathy with the vulnerability of the human heart.” –The Sunday Times“McEwan is a consistently entertaining storyteller, giving good weight right up until the final page. Even by his exacting standards his latest novel is extraordinary. His trademark sentences of sustained eloquence and delicacy, which have sometimes over-rationalized the evocation of emotion, strike a deeper resonance in Atonement.” –The Times
ALA Best Books for Young Adults WINNER
Commonwealth Writers Prize of Europe and South Asia WINNER 2002
National Book Critics Circle Awards NOMINEE
Booker Prize FINALIST 2001
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