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Sign up todayThe Book of Kings
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Learn moreWhile Europe drifts toward Nazism, four students share an apartment on the Rue de Fleurus. Thackara’s epic novel brilliantly forges the stories of these four men whose lives mirror the large picture of events around the world.
The title alludes to God’s prophetic warning to Samuel about the rise of man-made kings. James Thackara, as John Walsh wrote in the New Yorker, “watches Hitler’s rise from a dozen different perspectives: at Nuremberg rallies, as reported in dinner-table gossip, in close-up appearances at Hindenburg’s side, in letters and rumors of war, in the gradually thickening atmosphere of fright and inevitability.” This is a work of extraordinary vision and range, magnificently fusing myth and the inexorable events of history.
James Thackara was born in California in 1944 and educated in Buenos Aires, Provence, California, Rome, Switzerland and New England, graduating from Harvard in 1967, where he studied under Peter Taylor, Fredric Jameson, and Joseph Frank. He is the author of two other novels, America’s Children and Ahab’s Daughter.
Simon Vance, a former BBC Radio presenter and newsreader, is a full-time actor who has appeared on both stage and television. He has recorded over eight hundred audiobooks and has earned fifty-seven Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, including one for his narration of Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini. A multiple Audie finalist, Simon has won Audie Awards for The King's Speech by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan, and The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. Winner of the 2008 Booklist Voice of Choice Award, Simon has also been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.
Reviews
“Absorbing…when you encounter one of the huge set-pieces that punctuate the action you are rocked on your heels.”
“The book comes alive in a series of brilliant set pieces…Tremendously good.”
“The book nobody should miss reading…a crowning achievement.”
“Mr. Thackara has Tolstoy’s talent for painting the grand with small brushstrokes…There are many who will turn the last page only to start reading the book once more.”
“A noble literary achievement.”
“Stabs with compelling intensity…a unique fictional journey.”
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