David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

by David Mitchell

In one virtuosic, mind-bending novel after another, David Mitchell continues to strengthen his reputation as "one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive" (Dave Eggers, "The New York Times Book Review") and "the novelist who's been showing us the future of fiction" (Ron Charles, "The Washington Post"). Now three of his acclaimed novels--"Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, "and "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet"--are collected in one extraordinary eBook bundle.
And coming in September--don't miss "The Bone Clocks, "David Mitchell's epic new novel about a fifteen-year-old English runaway who slams the door on her old life only to stumble into a supernatural war of good and evil on the margins of our world.
CLOUD ATLAS
"Mitchell is, clearly, a genius. He writes as though at the helm of some perpetual dream machine."--"The New York Times Book Review"
In 1850, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California is befriended by a physician who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. In 1931 Belgium, a disinherited bisexual composer contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro with a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. On the West Coast in the 1970s, a troubled reporter stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder. The narrative jumps onward to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history--then boomerangs back through centuries and space, revealing how these disparate characters connect and how their fates intertwine.
BLACK SWAN GREEN
"As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall."--"Time"
Thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor lives in the sleepiest, muddiest village in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But over the course of a single year, Jason discovers a world that is anything but a world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys' games on a frozen lake; of "nightcreeping" through the summer backyards of strangers; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigre; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher's recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons.
THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET
"Mitchell's masterpiece; and also, I am convinced, a masterpiece of our time."--Richard Eder, "The Boston Globe"
The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the Japanese Empire's single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, and costly courtesans comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancee back in Holland. But Jacob's original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured midwife to the city's powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken--the consequences of which will extend beyond Jacob's worst imaginings.

Genres: Fiction

1344 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

David Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent, studying for a degree in English and American Literature followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature. He lived for a year in Sicily, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England. After another stint in Japan, he currently lives in Ireland with his wife Keiko and their two children. In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote: "I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. I would probably have become a writer wherever I lived, but would I have become the same writer if I'd spent the last 6 years in London, or Cape Town, or Moose Jaw, on an oil rig or in the circus? This is my answer to myself." Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), moves around the globe, from Okinawa to Mongolia to pre-Millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. The novel won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His two subsequent novels, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World. Mitchell's American editor at Random House is novelist David Ebershoff.

Reviews

[Eric Fischl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly my favorite living author. In order of preferance: Cloud Atlas, Jacob de Zoet, Boneclocks. But all his work is incredible.

[Rupert Wolfe-Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've listened to all these as audiobooks and they're brilliant, far better than the confusing publisher's blurb above.

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most difficult book I've ever tried to get through! Great plot, however, and lovely colorful characters -- just darned hard to keep everyone and everything straight! It was a struggle to get through it but I actually loved the storyline.