Cloud Atlas

David Mitchell

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Awards

Winner of British Book Awards: Literary Fiction Award 2005.

Winner of British Book Awards: Best Read of the Year 2005.

Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2004.

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Description

'Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies...' A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified 'dinery server' on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation - the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small. In his extraordinary third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity's dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

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Comments & Discussion

Goodfella68 rated this book

Extremely interesting and compelling read, just wish I was intelligent enough to answer… why? I don't really understand what the purpose of the book is and why split the stories in two, why the links between them are so tenuous and why have a birthmark running through all of them… I just don't really understand the reason. Can anyone more literate enlighten me please. I really loved the book but feel I've missed something essential.

30 days ago...

annaTRR likes this

annaTRR commented:

I also liked The Cloud Atlas a lot. I read it quite a few years ago and I remember struggling at times keeping up with what was going on since it is written a little bit in a structure most comparable to Russian dolls, story within the story within the story. It was a real challenge at times. Every reader takes something different from the books they read ... is it really important to get everything... as long as you enjoy the experience? Interestingly none of his following books were anywhere close to what Cloud Atlas although they have all been brilliant in their own way. I have not read his latest one but I heard great things about it.

30 days ago...