{"title":"El Doctorow","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"ragtime-book-el-doctorow-9780812978186","title":"Ragtime","description":"\u003cb\u003eFirst published in 1975, \u003ci\u003eRagtime\u003c\/i\u003e changed our very concept of what a novel could be--a singular tapestry hailed as \"an extraordinarily deft, lyrical, rich novel that catches the spirit of the country\" (\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e) between the turn of the century and the First World War.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Selected by the Modern Library and \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e as one of the 100 best novels of all time\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eThe inspiration for the Tony Award-winning musical!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49506996191505,"sku":"CIN0812978188G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49586132713745,"sku":"GOR003938551","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49624315298065,"sku":"GOR009147788","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49858439643409,"sku":"CIN0812978188A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49995214749969,"sku":"CIN0812978188VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50569823256849,"sku":"GOR003462821","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007904842001,"sku":"NIN9780812978186","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812978188.jpg?v=1750946868"},{"product_id":"homer-langley-book-el-doctorow-9780812975635","title":"Homer \u0026 Langley","description":"\u003cb\u003eNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, THE KANSAS CITY STAR, AND BOKLIST\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHomer and Langley Collyer are brothers--the one blind and deeply intuitive, the other damaged into madness, or perhaps greatness, by mustard gas in the Great War. They live as recluses in their once grand Fifth Avenue mansion, scavenging the city streets for things they think they can use, hoarding the daily newspapers as research for Langley's proposed dateless newspaper whose reportage will be as prophecy. Yet the epic events of the century play out in the lives of the two brothers--wars, political movements, technological advances--and even though they want nothing more than to shut out the world, history seems to pass through their cluttered house in the persons of immigrants, prostitutes, society women, government agents, gangsters, jazz musicians . . . and their housebound lives are fraught with odyssean peril as they struggle to survive and create meaning for themselves.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49511177519377,"sku":"CIN0812975634G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50313523134737,"sku":"GOR002483227","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50368796786961,"sku":"CIN0812975634A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007897403665,"sku":"NIN9780812975635","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51423786828049,"sku":"CIN0812975634VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812975634.jpg?v=1751264483"},{"product_id":"welcome-to-hard-times-book-el-doctorow-9780812978223","title":"Welcome to Hard Times","description":"\u003cb\u003eHere is E. L. Doctorow's debut novel, a searing allegory of frontier life that sets the stage for his subsequent classics.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHard Times is the name of a town in the barren hills of the Dakota Territory. To this town there comes one day one of the reckless sociopaths who wander the West to kill and rape and pillage. By the time he is through and has ridden off, Hard Times is a smoking ruin. The de facto mayor, Blue, takes in two survivors of the carnage-a boy, Jimmy, and a prostitute, Molly, who has suffered unspeakably-and makes them his provisional family. Blue begins to rebuild Hard Times, welcoming new settlers, while Molly waits with vengeance in her heart for the return of the outlaw. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eWelcome to Hard Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e A forceful, credible story of cowardice and evil.\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--The Washington Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e We are caught up with these people as real human beings.\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Chicago Sun-Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Dramatic and exciting.\u003cb\u003e--\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Terse and powerful.\u003cb\u003e--\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e A taut, bloodthirsty read.\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--The Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e A superb piece of fiction.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49543342686481,"sku":"GOR004901771","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49666809397521,"sku":"GOR012966567","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49675233100049,"sku":"CIN0812978226G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49772897009937,"sku":"CIN0812978226A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007977980177,"sku":"NIN9780812978223","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52867157393681,"sku":"CIN0812978226VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53209448677649,"sku":"GOR008291659","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812978226.jpg?v=1750746206"},{"product_id":"waterworks-book-el-doctorow-9780812978193","title":"The Waterworks","description":"An elegant page-turner of nineteenth-century detective fiction.\u003cbr\u003e-The Washington Post Book World \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOne rainy morning in 1871 in lower Manhattan, Martin Pemberton a freelance writer, sees in a passing stagecoach several elderly men, one of whom he recognizes as his supposedly dead and buried father. While trying to unravel the mystery, Pemberton disappears, sending McIlvaine, his employer, the editor of an evening paper, in pursuit of the truth behind his freelancer's fate. Layer by layer, McIlvaine reveals a modern metropolis surging with primordial urges and sins, where the Tweed Ring operates the city for its own profit and a conspicuously self-satisfied nouveau-riche ignores the poverty and squalor that surrounds them. In E. L. Doctorow's skilled hands, The Waterworks becomes, in the words of \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, a dark moral tale . . . an eloquently troubling evocation of our past. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eStartling and spellbinding . . . The waters that lave the narrative all run to the great confluence, where the deepest issues of life and death are borne along on the swift, sure vessel of  Doctorow's] poetic imagination.\u003cbr\u003e-\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHypnotic . . . a dazzling romp, an extraordinary read, given strength and grace by the telling, by the poetic voice and controlled cynical lyricism of its streetwise and world-weary narrator.\u003cbr\u003e-\u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA gem of a novel, intimate as chamber music . . . a thriller guaranteed to leave readers with residual chills and shudders.\u003cbr\u003e-\u003ci\u003eBoston Sunday Herald\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEnthralling . . . a story of debauchery and redemption that is spellbinding from first page to last.\u003cbr\u003e-\u003ci\u003eChicago Sun-Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAn immense, extraordinary achievement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e-San Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49581460095249,"sku":"GOR003503096","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49975636099345,"sku":"CIN0812978196G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50363250999569,"sku":"CIN0812978196A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008164823313,"sku":"NIN9780812978193","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51734786703633,"sku":"CIN0812978196VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51764726825233,"sku":"GOR005022051","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812978196.jpg?v=1751447819"},{"product_id":"doctorow-collected-stories-book-el-doctorow-9780399588358","title":"Doctorow: Collected Stories","description":"\u003cb\u003eA superb collection of fifteen stories--including Wakefield, the inspiration for the \u003cb\u003efilm starring Bryan Cranston\u003c\/b\u003e--by the author of \u003ci\u003eRagtime\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe March\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Daniel, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eBilly Bathgate\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e He has been called a national treasure by George Saunders. Doctorow's great topic, said Don DeLillo, is the reach of American possibility, in which plain lives take on the cadences of history. This power is apparent everywhere in these stories: the bravery and self-delusion of people seeking the American dream; the geniuses, mystics, and charlatans who offer people false hope, or an actual glimpse of greatness. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In A House on the Plains, a mother has a plan for financial independence, which may include murder. In Walter John Harmon, a man starts a cult using subterfuge and seduction. Jolene: A Life follows a teenager who escapes her home for Hollywood on a perilous quest for success. Heist, the account of an Episcopal priest coping with a crisis of faith, was expanded into the bestseller \u003ci\u003eCity of God\u003c\/i\u003e. The Water Works, about the underbelly of 1870s New York, grew into a brilliant novel. Liner Notes: The Songs of Billy Bathgate is a corollary to the renowned novel and includes Doctorow's revisions. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e These fifteen stories, written from the 1960s to the early twenty-first century, and selected, revised, and placed in order by the author himself shortly before he died in 2015, are a testament to the genius of E. L. Doctorow. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eDoctorow: Collected Stories\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHere, without the framework of historical context that defines his best-known novels, we discover a Doctorow equally adept at plumbing the contemporary American psyche and are reminded of literature's loss following his death.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eO: The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e These tales--sketches, really, wide-ranging in time, place and circumstances--are penned by a modern master. . . . What makes Doctorow's historical novels brilliant is their engaging prose, smart writerly style, unconventional narratives and inventive and entertaining plots. Same for these dog-eared, pre-owned stories.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cb\u003ePraise for E. L. Doctorow\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e He has rewarded us, these forty-five years, with a vision of ourselves, as a people, a vision possessed of what I might call 'aspirational verve'--he sees us clearly and tenderly, just as we are, but also sees \u003ci\u003epast\u003c\/i\u003e that--to what we might, at our best, become.\u003cb\u003e--George Saunders\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Doctorow did not so much write fiction about history as he seemed to occupy history itself. He owned it. He made it his own.\u003cb\u003e--Ta-Nehisi Coates\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e On every level,  Doctorow's] work is powerful. . . . His sensitivity to language is perfectly balanced, and complemented by a gigantic vision.\u003cb\u003e--Jennifer Egan\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e  He wrote] with such stunning audacity that I can still remember my parents' awed dinner-table conversation, that summer, about a novel they were reading, called \u003ci\u003eRagtime, \u003c\/i\u003e that went up to the overgrown wall enclosing the garden of fiction and opened the doorway to history.\u003cb\u003e--Michael Chabon\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Doctorow's prose tends to create its own landscape, and to become a force that works in opposition to the power of social reality.\u003cb\u003e--Don DeLillo\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e A writer of dazzling gifts and boundless imaginative energy.\u003cb\u003e--Joyce Carol Oates\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49583295758609,"sku":"GOR011756656","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50351097839889,"sku":"CIN0399588353G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50954615292177,"sku":"CIN0399588353VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53362463441169,"sku":"CIN0399588353A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53367639736593,"sku":"GOR010051123","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0399588353.jpg?v=1750910568"},{"product_id":"march-book-el-doctorow-9780812976151","title":"The March","description":"WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD\u003cbr\u003e WINNER OF THE PEN\/FAULKNER AWARD\u003cbr\u003e NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In 1864, Union general William Tecumseh Sherman marched his sixty thousand troops through Georgia to the sea, and then up into the Carolinas. The army fought off Confederate forces, demolished cities, and accumulated a borne-along population of freed blacks and white refugees until all that remained was the dangerous transient life of the dispossessed and the triumphant. In E. L. Doctorow's hands the great march becomes a floating world, a nomadic consciousness, and an unforgettable reading experience with awesome relevance to our own times.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49593000722705,"sku":"GOR002036333","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49623055958289,"sku":"GOR001859521","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50125369344273,"sku":"CIN0812976150VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50136415338769,"sku":"CIN0812976150A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50506690298129,"sku":"GOR008497451","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51268553113873,"sku":"NIN9780812976151","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52105300082961,"sku":"CIN0812976150G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812976150.jpg?v=1750703053"},{"product_id":"andrew-s-brain-book-el-doctorow-9780812980981","title":"Andrew's Brain","description":"\u003cb\u003eNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY \u003ci\u003eST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, SLATE, \u003c\/i\u003eAND\u003ci\u003e THE TELEGRAPH\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis brilliant novel by the author of\u003ci\u003e Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, Billy Bathgate, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e The March \u003c\/i\u003etakes us on a radical trip into the mind of a man who, more than once, has been the inadvertent agent of disaster. Speaking from an unknown place and to an unknown interlocutor, Andrew is thinking, Andrew is talking, Andrew is telling the story of his life, his loves, and the tragedies that have led him to this place and point in time. As he peels back the layers of his strange story, we are led to question what we know about truth and memory, brain and mind, personality and fate, about one another and ourselves. Probing, mischievous, and profound, \u003ci\u003eAndrew's Brain\u003c\/i\u003e is a singular achievement in the canon of an American master.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eLook for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader's Circle for author chats and more.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToo compelling to put down . . . fascinating, sometimes funny, often profound . . . Andrew is a provocatively interesting and even sympathetic character. . . . The novel seamlessly combines Doctorow's remarkable prowess as a literary stylist with deep psychological storytelling pitting truth against delusion, memory and perception, consciousness and craziness. . . .  Doctorow] takes huge creative risks--the best kind.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAndrew's Brain\u003c\/i\u003e is cunning. . . .  A] sly book . . . This babbling Andrew is a casualty of his times, binding his wounds with thick wrappings of words, ideas, bits of story, whatever his spinning mind can unspool for him. . . . One of the things that makes  Andrew] such a terrific comic creation is that he's both maddeningly self-delusive and scarily self-aware: He's a fool, but he's no innocent. . . . Andrew may not be able to enjoy his brain, but Doctorow, freely choosing to inhabit this character's whirligig consciousness, can.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA tantalising tour de force . . . a journey worth taking . . . With exhilarating brio, the book plays off . . . two contrasting takes on mind and brain. . . .  \u003ci\u003eAndrew's Brain\u003c\/i\u003e encompasses] an astonishing range of modes: vaudeville humour, tragic romance, philosophical speculation. . . . It fizzes with intellectual energy, verbal pyrotechnics and satiric flair.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDramatic . . . cunning and beautiful . . . strange and oddly fascinating, this book: a musing, a conjecture, a frivolity, a deep interrogatory, a hymn.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eProvocative . . . a story aswirl in a whirlpool of neuroscience, human relations, loss, guilt and recent American history . . . Doctorow reveals his mastery in the sheen of a text that is both window and mirror. Reading his work is akin to soaring in a glider. Buoyed by invisible breath, readers encounter stunning vistas stretching to horizons they've never imagined.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe Plain Dealer\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAndrew's ruminations can be funny, and his descriptions gorgeous.\u003cb\u003e--Associated Press\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e An] evocative, suspenseful novel about the deceptive nature of human consciousness.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eMore\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA quick and acutely intelligent read.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49606976340241,"sku":"GOR009653208","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49902006468881,"sku":"CIN0812980980G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50138882670865,"sku":"CIN0812980980VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51853471252753,"sku":"CIN0812980980A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812980980.jpg?v=1751010864"},{"product_id":"ragtime-book-el-doctorow-9780553149708","title":"Ragtime","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49617223745809,"sku":"CIN0553149709G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50338431893777,"sku":"CIN0553149709VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50353868996881,"sku":"CIN0553149709A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0553149709.jpg?v=1750698940"},{"product_id":"billy-bathgate-book-el-doctorow-9780812981179","title":"Billy Bathgate","description":"To open this book is to enter the perilous, thrilling world of \u003cb\u003eBilly Bathgate\u003c\/b\u003e, the brazen boy who is accepted into the inner circle of the notorious Dutch Schultz gang. Like an urban Tom Sawyer, Billy takes us along on his fateful adventures as he becomes good-luck charm, apprentice, and finally prot g  to one of the great murdering gangsters of the Depression-era underworld in New York City. The luminous transformation of fact into fiction that is E. L. Doctorow's trademark comes to triumphant fruition in \u003cb\u003eBilly Bathgate\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e, \u003c\/i\u003ea peerless coming-of-age tale and one of Doctorow's boldest and most beloved bestsellers.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49643878351121,"sku":"GOR009094871","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49989768020241,"sku":"CIN0812981170G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008257589521,"sku":"NIN9780812981179","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51416482742545,"sku":"CIN0812981170VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51829296660753,"sku":"CIN0812981170A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812981170.jpg?v=1750979420"},{"product_id":"loon-lake-book-el-doctorow-9780812978216","title":"Loon Lake","description":"The hero of this dazzling novel by American master E. L. Doctorow is Joe, a young man on the run in the depths of the Great Depression. A late-summer night finds him alone and shivering beside a railroad track in the Adirondack mountains when a private railcar passes. Brightly lit windows reveal well-dressed men at a table and, in another compartment, a beautiful girl holding up a white dress before her naked form. Joe will follow the track to the mysterious estate at Loon Lake, where he finds the girl along with a tycoon, an aviatrix, a drunken poet, and a covey of gangsters. Here Joe's fate will play out in this powerful story of ambition, aggression, and identity. Loon Lake is another stunning achievement of this acclaimed author. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePowerful . . .  a] complex and haunting meditation on modern American history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e-The New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA genuine thriller . . . a marvelous exploration of the complexities and contradictions of the American dream . . . Not under any circumstances would we reveal the truly shattering climax.\u003cbr\u003e-\u003ci\u003eThe Dallas Morning News\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA dazzling performance . . .  \u003ci\u003eLoon Lake\u003c\/i\u003e] anatomizes America with insight, passion, and inventiveness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e-The Washington Post Book World\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHypnotic . . . tantalizes long after it has ended.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e-Time\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCompelling . . . brilliantly done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e-St. Louis Post-Dispatch\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA masterpiece.\u003cbr\u003e-Chicago Sun-Times","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49745933959441,"sku":"CIN0812978218G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008075956497,"sku":"NIN9780812978216","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51521101857041,"sku":"CIN0812978218VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812978218.jpg?v=1750703060"},{"product_id":"book-of-daniel-book-el-doctorow-9780812978179","title":"The Book of Daniel","description":"The central figure of this novel is a young man whose parents were executed for conspiring to steal atomic secrets for Russia. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHis name is Daniel Isaacson, and as the story opens, his parents have been dead for many years. He has had a long time to adjust to their deaths. He has not adjusted. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOut of the shambles of his childhood, he has constructed a new life--marriage to an adoring girl who gives him a son of his own, and a career in scholarship. It is a life that enrages him. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the silence of the library at Columbia University, where he is supposedly writing a Ph.D. dissertation, Daniel composes something quite different. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is a confession of his most intimate relationships--with his wife, his foster parents, and his kid sister Susan, whose own radicalism so reproaches him. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is a book of memories: riding a bus with his parents to the ill-fated Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill; watching the FBI take his father away; appearing with Susan at rallies protesting their parents' innocence; visiting his mother and father in the Death House. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is a book of investigation: transcribing Daniel's interviews with people who knew his parents, or who knew about them; and logging his strange researches and discoveries in the library stacks. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is a book of judgments of everyone involved in the case--lawyers, police, informers, friends, and the Isaacson family itself. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is a book rich in characters, from elderly grand- mothers of immigrant culture, to covert radicals of the McCarthy era, to hippie marchers on the Pen-tagon. It is a book that spans the quarter-century of American life since World War II. It is a book about the nature of Left politics in this country--its sacrificial rites, its peculiar cruelties, its humility, its bitterness. It is a book about some of the beautiful and terrible feelings of childhood. It is about the nature of guilt and innocence, and about the relations of people to nations. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Daniel\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49763110584593,"sku":"CIN081297817XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49951757304081,"sku":"CIN081297817XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50763168448785,"sku":"CIN081297817XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008128123153,"sku":"NIN9780812978179","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/081297817X.jpg?v=1751330183"},{"product_id":"drinks-before-dinner-book-el-doctorow-9781559361156","title":"Drinks Before Dinner","description":"This long-unavailable work by one of America's most eminent and popular writers appears in paperback for the first time. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eDrinks Before Dinner\u003c\/i\u003e, called witty and provocative by the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, is E.L. Doctorow's only play. A tour-de-force of language and ideas concerning the individual's role in and response to contemporary America, \u003ci\u003eDrinks Before Dinner\u003c\/i\u003e revolves around a dinner party for the economically privileged. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs Doctorow writes in his introduction,  This play] deals in general statements about the most common circumstances of our lives, the numbers of us, the cars we drive, the television we watch, the cities we live in, our contraception and our armaments, and our underlying sense of the apocalypse. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor the past two decades, E. L. Doctorow has been counted among the country's best-regarded men of letters. His novels include \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Daniel\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRagtime\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLoon Lake\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLives of the Poets\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWorld's Fair\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBilly Bathgate\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Waterworks\u003c\/i\u003e. He has also published a volume selected essays, \u003ci\u003eJack London, Hemmingway, and the Constitution\u003c\/i\u003e. His writings have garnered the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award, the Pen\/Faulkner Award, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, and the William Dean Howells medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in New York City.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49791202689297,"sku":"CIN1559361158G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51037566435601,"sku":"NIN9781559361156","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51334596329745,"sku":"CIN1559361158VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1559361158.jpg?v=1750991515"},{"product_id":"ragtime-book-el-doctorow-9780679602972","title":"Ragtime","description":"Published in 1975, Ragtime changed our very concept of what a novel could be. An extraordinary tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century and the First World War.\u003cbr\u003e The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home \u003cbr\u003eof an affluent American family. \u003cbr\u003eOne lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disap-\u003cbr\u003epears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sig- mund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.\u003cbr\u003eThe Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foundation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with afford-\u003cbr\u003eable hardbound editions of impor-\u003cbr\u003etant works of literature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-\u003cbr\u003efifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring\u003cbr\u003eas its emblem the running torch-\u003cbr\u003ebearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-\u003cbr\u003egurating a new program of selecting titles. The ModernLibrary continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49797347934481,"sku":"CIN0679602976G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49889237434641,"sku":"CIN0679602976VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50182101238033,"sku":"GOR004301365","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51764977565969,"sku":"CIN0679602976A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0679602976.jpg?v=1750912268"},{"product_id":"sweet-land-stories-book-el-doctorow-9780812971774","title":"Sweet Land Stories","description":"One of America's premier writers, the bestselling author of Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, The Book of Daniel, and World's Fair turns his astonishing narrative powers to the short story in five dazzling explorations of who we are as a people and how we live. \u003cbr\u003eRanging over the American continent from Alaska to Washington, D.C., these superb short works are crafted with all the weight and resonance of the novels for which E. L. Doctorow is famous. You will find yourself set down in a mysterious redbrick townhouse in rural Illinois (A House on the Plains), working things out with a baby-kidnapping couple in California (Baby Wilson), living on a religious-cult commune in Kansas (Walter John Harmon), and sharing the heartrending cross-country journey of a young woman navigating her way through three bad marriages to a kind of bruised but resolute independence (Jolene: A Life). And in the stunning Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden, you will witness a special agent of the FBI finding himself at a personal crossroads while investigating a grave breach of White House security. \u003cbr\u003eTwo of these stories have already won awards as the best fiction of the year published in American periodicals, and two have been chosen for annual best-story anthologies. \u003cbr\u003eComposed in a variety of moods and voices, these remarkable portrayals of the American spiritual landscape show a modern master at the height of his powers. \u003cp\u003eFrom the Hardcover edition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50005468021009,"sku":"CIN0812971779G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008091062545,"sku":"NIN9780812971774","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51695698313489,"sku":"CIN0812971779VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51748371530001,"sku":"GOR002244772","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":52817008525585,"sku":"CIN0812971779LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52821162197265,"sku":"GOR006338882","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812971779.jpg?v=1751138719"},{"product_id":"lives-of-the-poets-book-el-doctorow-9780812981186","title":"Lives of the Poets","description":"Innocence is lost to unforgettable experience in these brilliant stories by E. L. Doctorow, as full of mystery and meaning as any of the longer works by this American master. In The Writer in the Family, a young man learns the difference between lying and literature after he is induced into deceiving a relative through letters. In Wili, an early-twentieth-century idyll is destroyed by infidelity. In The Foreign Legation, a girl and an act of political anarchy collide with devastating results. These and other stories flow into the novella Lives of the Poets, in which the images and themes of the earlier stories become part of the narrator's unsparing confessions about his own mind, offering a rare look at the creative process and its connection to the heart.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50116227629329,"sku":"CIN0812981189G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50427034075409,"sku":"GOR013946323","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52629582577937,"sku":"CIN0812981189A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53262135460113,"sku":"NIN9780812981186","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812981189.jpg?v=1773921368"},{"product_id":"welcome-to-hard-times-book-el-doctorow-9780449216026","title":"Welcome to Hard Times","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50208702005521,"sku":"CIN0449216020A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0449216020.jpg?v=1751228721"},{"product_id":"city-of-god-book-el-doctorow-9780812985894","title":"City of God","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eBESTSELER\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e With brilliant and audacious strokes, E. L. Doctorow creates a breathtaking collage of memories, events, visions, and provocative thought, all centered on an idea of the modern reality of God. At the heart of this stylistically daring tour de force is a detective story about a cross that vanishes from a rundown Episcopal church in lower Manhattan only to reappear on the roof of an Upper West Side synagogue. Intrigued by the mystery--and by the maverick rector and the young rabbi investigating the strange act of desecration--is a well-known novelist, whose capacious brain is a virtual repository for the ideas and disasters of the age. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Daringly poised at the junction of the sacred and the profane, filled with the sights and sounds of New York, and encompassing a large cast of vividly drawn characters including theologians, scientists, Holocaust survivors, and war veterans, \u003ci\u003eCity of God \u003c\/i\u003eis a monumental work of spiritual reflection, philosophy, and history by America's preeminent novelist and chronicler of our time.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eCity of God\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A grander perspective on the universe . . . a novel that sets its sights on God.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Dazzling . . . The true miracle of \u003ci\u003eCity of God\u003c\/i\u003e is the way its disparate parts fuse into a consistently enthralling and suspenseful whole.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Blooms with humor, and a humanity that carries triumphant as intelligent a novel as one might hope to find these days.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Radiates  with] panoramic ambition and spiritual incandescence.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e One of the greatest American novels of the past fifty years . . . Reading \u003ci\u003eCity of God \u003c\/i\u003erestores one's faith in literature.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe Houston Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eFrom the Hardcover edition.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50267366654225,"sku":"CIN0812985893G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008131662097,"sku":"NIN9780812985894","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52815387361553,"sku":"CIN0812985893VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53146960462097,"sku":"GOR014775283","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812985893.jpg?v=1751362510"},{"product_id":"ragtime-book-e-l-doctorow-9780553026009","title":"Ragtime","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50304694321425,"sku":"CIN0553026003A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53511021822225,"sku":"CIN0553026003G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0553135422.jpg?v=1751293536"},{"product_id":"199-days-book-edwin-palmer-hoyt-9780812536003","title":"199 Days","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50307048505617,"sku":"CIN0812536002A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812536002.jpg?v=1750882308"},{"product_id":"creationists-book-el-doctorow-9780812975642","title":"Creationists","description":"E. L. Doctorow is acclaimed internationally for such novels as \u003ci\u003eRagtime, Billy Bathgate, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe March\u003c\/i\u003e. Now here are Doctorow's rich, revelatory essays on the nature of imaginative thought. In \u003ci\u003eCreationists\u003c\/i\u003e, Doctorow considers creativity in its many forms: from the literary (Melville and Mark Twain) to the comic (Harpo Marx) to the cosmic (Genesis and Einstein). As he wrestles with the subjects that have teased and fired his own imagination, Doctorow affirms the idea that we know by what we create. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJust what is Melville doing in \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick\u003c\/i\u003e? And how did \u003ci\u003eThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer\u003c\/i\u003e impel Mark Twain to radically rewrite what we know as \u003ci\u003eHuckleberry Finn\u003c\/i\u003e? Can we ever trust what novelists say about their own work? How could Franz Kafka have written a book called Amerika without ever leaving Europe? In posing such questions, Doctorow grapples with literary creation not as a critic or as a scholar-but as one working writer frankly contemplating the work of another. It's a perspective that affords him both protean grace and profound insight. \u003cbr\u003eAmong the essays collected here are Doctorow's musings on the very different Spanish Civil War novels of Ernest Hemingway and Andr  Malraux; a candid assessment of Edgar Allan Poe as our greatest bad writer; a bracing analysis of the story of Genesis in which God figures as the most complex and riveting character. Whether he is considering how Harpo Marx opened our eyes to surrealism, the haunting photos with which the late German writer W. G. Sebald illustrated his texts, or the innovations of such \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eliterary icons as Heinrich von Kleist, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Sinclair Lewis, Doctorow is unfailingly generous, shrewd, attentive, surprising, and precise.\u003cbr\u003eIn examining the creative works of different times and disciplines, Doctorow also reveals the source and nature of his own artistry. Rich in aphorism and anecdote, steeped in history and psychology, informed by a lifetime of reading and writing, \u003ci\u003eCreationists\u003c\/i\u003e opens a magnificent window into one of the great creative minds of our time. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eFrom the Hardcover edition.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50327015325969,"sku":"CIN0812975642G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007883051281,"sku":"NIN9780812975642","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812975642.jpg?v=1751362491"},{"product_id":"all-the-time-in-the-world-book-el-doctorow-9780812982039","title":"All the Time in the World","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom a master of modern American letters comes an enthralling collection of brilliant short fiction about people who, as E. L. Doctorow notes in his Preface, are somehow distinct from their surroundings--people in some sort of contest with the prevailing world. Containing six unforgettable stories that have never appeared in book form, and a selection of previous classics, \u003ci\u003eAll the Time in the World\u003c\/i\u003e is resonant with the mystery, tension, and moral investigation that distinguish the fiction of E. L. Doctorow. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50369159823633,"sku":"CIN0812982037G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52740261970193,"sku":"NIN9780812982039","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53054909350161,"sku":"CIN0812982037VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0812982037.jpg?v=1751329078"},{"product_id":"scenes-sequences-book-el-doctorow-9780810933033","title":"Scenes \u0026 Sequences","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50407301808401,"sku":"CIN0810933039VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52105783804177,"sku":"CIN0810933039G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0810933039.jpg?v=1750883141"},{"product_id":"citizen-doctorow-notes-on-art-and-politics-book-el-doctorow-9781940489094","title":"Citizen Doctorow : Notes on Art and Politics","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51330454454545,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51330456977681,"sku":"CIN1940489091VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1940489091.jpg?v=1750931820"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-ie\/collections\/author-books-by-el-doctorow.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}