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From Booker Prize–winning novelist Ian McEwan comes a dazzling collection of essays, ranging from intimate memoirs of his childhood and his early days as a writer, to illuminating explorations of consciousness, the health of the planet, and living in a world without his closest friends.

“The English writer is a thinking person’s bestseller, whose intelligent, tightly plotted novels, narrated in careful prose, address the pressing social and political issues of our days.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Through his books, Ian McEwan has become one of the great storytellers of our time, as well as one of our most important public intellectuals. His work explores the human psyche with extraordinary insight and sensitivity, and grapples with the challenges and miracles of our time with an irresistible curiosity—from climate change, technology, science, and law to political upheaval and war. Generations of readers have come to cherish his fiction and trust it to help them understand themselves as well as the world around them.

This landmark collection brings together for the first time his piercingly brilliant, wide-ranging essays, composed across his life and ranging from intimate personal recollection to bold intellectual inquiry. They illuminate the ideas, passions, experiences and questions that have shaped his life and work, and are essential reading.