{"title":"Scott Hutchins","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"working-theory-of-love-book-scott-hutchins-9780241962565","title":"A Working Theory of Love","description":"A Working Theory of Love by Scott Hutchins is a recklessly witty, outrageously honest novel about sex, love and artificial intelligence.  'Tremendous, big, clever. Every once in a while a novel comes along and speaks to a generation ... has much to say about what it means to live, love and lose in the twenty-first century'  Guardian  Silicon Valley: home of online start-ups, couture coffee, sexual meditation, and the future. In its midst, Neill Bassett is helping to build the world's first artificial intelligence - a computer that talks, thinks, lies, and if all goes to plan, feels bad about it too. But when the experiment swerves in an unexpected direction, Neill is forced to confront a few buried feelings of his own - for his ex-wife, for his dead father, for his twenty-first-century life, and for a very twenty-first-century woman called Rachel, who might just hold the answer to it all...  'Electrifying. Clever, funny and very entertaining'  The New York Times  'Worthy of Chuck Palahniuk ... Hutchins's satirical take on 21st-century existence is sharply observed'  Independent  'Touching and extremely funny, Neill Bassett is a disenchanted bachelor for the Noughties generation. Brilliantly achieved'  GQ  'Inventive, intelligent, hilarious. One of the pleasures here is Hutchins' terrific grasp of the zeitgest'  San Francisco Chronicle  'Terrific. Throughout, Hutchins hits that sweet spot where humour and melancholy comfortably coexist'  Entertainment Weekly  'Mixes the everyman likeability of Nick Hornby with a splash of the offbeat intellect of Douglas Coupland'  Metro  Scott Hutchins teaches at Stanford University, California. His work has appeared in StoryQuarterly, The Rumpus, The New York Times and Esquire. This is his first novel.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49548160205073,"sku":"GOR006124333","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49661917856017,"sku":"GOR005860226","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50851523821841,"sku":"GOR010385537","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0241962560.jpg?v=1751428156"},{"product_id":"working-theory-of-love-book-scott-hutchins-9780241964866","title":"A Working Theory of Love","description":"A Working Theory of Love by Scott Hutchins is a brilliantly witty novel of 21st century relationships for readers of Nick Hornby and Douglas Coupland.  'Electrifying. Clever, funny and very entertaining'  The New York Times  'Tremendous, big, clever ... Every once in a while a novel comes along and speaks to a generation ... Hutchins expertly charts the terrain of love, and what it means to fall, and fall hard'  Guardian  'Touching and extremely funny, Neill Bassett is a disenchanted bachelor for the Noughties generation. Brilliantly achieved'  GQ  Recently divorced, thirty-six-year-old Neill Bassett is engaged in an extraordinary experiment.  By day, he works at a Silicon Valley software company, where he is helping to create the world's first 'living' artificial intelligence -- a computer programme based on the personality of his late father. By night, he is attempting to reconcile his own emotional shortcomings with the unexpected attractions of an intriguing young woman called Rachel. The question is: what does it take to be a real human being?  Set in San Francisco, where anything goes (and regularly does), this recklessly witty, formidably funny, outrageously honest novel captures the exquisite agony of contemporary relationships.  'Likened to the work of Nick Hornby ... humorous and quietly profound'  Observer  'Worthy of Chuck Palahniuk ... Hutchins's satirical take on 21st-century existence is sharply observed'  Independent  'Smart, breezy, an assured debut ... Mixing the everyman likeability of Nick Hornby with a splash of the offbeat intellect of Douglas Coupland'  Metro  'Zeitgeisty, poignant and funny'  The Herald  'Inventive, intelligent and sometimes hilarious. One of the pleasures here is Hutchins' terrific grasp of the zeitgest'  San Francisco Chronicle  'A brainy, bright, laughter-through-tears, can't-stop-reading-until-it's-over kind of novel'  Gary Shteyngart  'Terrific. Throughout, Hutchins hits that sweet spot where humour and melancholy comfortably coexist' Entertainment Weekly  'Original, wise, full of serious thinking, serious fun and the shock of the new. Astonishing'  Adam Johnson, author of The Orphan Master's Son  'Terrific. And intriguing, original take on family and friendship, lust and longing, grief and forgiveness'  Associated Press  'Wonderful. Brilliantly observant about the way we live now. Comic and haunting'  Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love  'Beautifully written and consistently engaging. Charming, warm-hearted and thought-provoking'  The New York Times  'Inventive and engaging'  New Yorker   Scott Hutchins teaches at Stanford University, California. His work has appeared in StoryQuarterly, The Rumpus, The New York Times and Esquire. This is his first novel.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49559326654737,"sku":"GOR004754958","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49601698103569,"sku":"GOR013029084","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50347285741841,"sku":"CIN0241964865G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50496809926929,"sku":"CIN0241964865VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0241964865.jpg?v=1751005771"},{"product_id":"working-theory-of-love-book-scott-hutchins-9780143124191","title":"A Working Theory of Love","description":"Settled back into the San Francisco singles scene following the implosion of his young marriage just months after the honeymoon, Neill Bassett is going through the motions. His carefully modulated routine, however, is soon disrupted in ways he can't dismiss with his usual nonchalance.When Neill's father committed suicide ten years ago, he left behind thousands of pages of secret journals, journals that are stunning in their detail, and, it must be said, their complete banality. But their spectacularly quotidian details, were exactly what artificial intelligence company Amiante Systems was looking for, and Neill was able to parlay them into a job, despite a useless degree in business marketing and absolutely no experience in computer science. He has spent the last two years inputting the diaries into what everyone hopes will become the world's first sentient computer. Essentially, he has been giving it language-using his father's words. Alarming to Neill-if not to the other employees of Amiante-the experiment seems to be working. The computer actually appears to be gaining awareness and, most disconcerting of all, has started asking questions about Neill's childhood.Amid this psychological turmoil, Neill meets Rachel. She was meant to be a one-night stand, but Neill is unexpectedly taken with her and the possibilities she holds. At the same time, he remains preoccupied by unresolved feelings for his ex-wife, who has a talent for appearing at the most unlikely and unfortunate times. When Neill discovers a missing year in the diaries-a year that must hold some secret to his parents' marriage and perhaps even his father's suicide-everything Neill thought he knew about his past comes into question, and every move forward feels impossible to make.With a lightness of touch that belies pitch-perfect emotional control, Scott Hutchins takes us on an odyssey of love, grief, and reconciliation that shows us how, once we let go of the idea that we're trapped by our own sad histories-our childhoods, our bad decisions, our miscommunications with those we love-we have the chance to truly be free. A Working Theory of Love marks the electrifying debut of a prodigious new talent.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50215552844049,"sku":"CIN0143124196G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345643376913,"sku":"CIN0143124196VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999495950609,"sku":"NIN9780143124191","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51939258663185,"sku":"GOR014468470","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0143124196.jpg?v=1751227258"},{"product_id":"working-theory-of-love-book-scott-hutchins-9781594205057","title":"A Working Theory of Love","description":"Settled back into the San Francisco singles scene following the implosion of his young marriage just months after the honeymoon, Neill Bassett is going through the motions. His carefully modulated routine, however, is soon disrupted in ways he can't dismiss with his usual nonchalance.When Neill's father committed suicide ten years ago, he left behind thousands of pages of secret journals, journals that are stunning in their detail, and, it must be said, their complete banality. But their spectacularly quotidian details, were exactly what artificial intelligence company Amiante Systems was looking for, and Neill was able to parlay them into a job, despite a useless degree in business marketing and absolutely no experience in computer science. He has spent the last two years inputting the diaries into what everyone hopes will become the world's first sentient computer. Essentially, he has been giving it language-using his father's words. Alarming to Neill-if not to the other employees of Amiante-the experiment seems to be working. The computer actually appears to be gaining awareness and, most disconcerting of all, has started asking questions about Neill's childhood.Amid this psychological turmoil, Neill meets Rachel. She was meant to be a one-night stand, but Neill is unexpectedly taken with her and the possibilities she holds. At the same time, he remains preoccupied by unresolved feelings for his ex-wife, who has a talent for appearing at the most unlikely and unfortunate times. When Neill discovers a missing year in the diaries-a year that must hold some secret to his parents' marriage and perhaps even his father's suicide-everything Neill thought he knew about his past comes into question, and every move forward feels impossible to make.With a lightness of touch that belies pitch-perfect emotional control, Scott Hutchins takes us on an odyssey of love, grief, and reconciliation that shows us how, once we let go of the idea that we're trapped by our own sad histories-our childhoods, our bad decisions, our miscommunications with those we love-we have the chance to truly be free. A Working Theory of Love marks the electrifying debut of a prodigious new talent.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50278944833809,"sku":"CIN1594205051G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52963884106001,"sku":"CIN1594205051VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1594205051.jpg?v=1751408279"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-scott-hutchins.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}