Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year A New York Times Notable Book Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Winner of the ALA Alex Award Finalist for the Costa Novel Award

From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new.

Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys' games on a frozen lake; of nightcreeping through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigr who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason's search to replace his dead grandfather's irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; 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.

Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell's subtlest and most effective achievement to date.

Praise for Black Swan Green

David Mitchell has created] one of the most endearing, smart, and funny young narrators ever to rise up from the pages of a novel. . . . The always fresh and brilliant writing will carry readers back to their own childhoods. . . . This enchanting novel makes us remember exactly what it was like.--The Boston Globe

David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer. . . . As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.--Time

Mitchell, David: - David Mitchell has been a Waldorf teacher for thirty-six years. He was a class teacher and a founding teacher of the Pine Hill Waldorf School in Wilton, New Hampshire. He has taught life sciences, Shakespeare, geometry, blacksmithing, woodworking, and stone sculpture in Waldorf high schools for thirty-six years. David is also an adjunct professor at Antioch College, has served as a leader in the Association of Waldorf Schools in North America (AWSNA) in various capacities since the 1980s. In 1997, the Amgen Corporation selected him as one of the top two teachers in the state of Colorado. Currently, he is the chair of publications for AWSNA and serves as the co-director of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education. He has edited scores of books over the years and is the author of Will-Developed Intelligence; Windows into Waldorf; The Wonders of Waldorf Chemistry; and 25 Plays, and Resources for Waldorf Teachers (all from AWSNA), as well as a contributor to The Inner Life of the Earth from Lindisfarne Books.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781400063796
ISBN 10	1400063795
Title	Black Swan Green
Author	David Mitchell
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Random House (NY)
Year published	2006-04-11
Number of pages	304
Prizes	Winner of ALA Notable Books (Fiction) 2007, Winner of Alex Awards 2007, Commended for L.A. Times Book Prize (Fiction) 2006, Short-listed for Costa Book Awards (Novel) 2006, Short-listed for Quill Awards (General Fiction) 2006
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.