Cloud Atlas at 20: What makes a novel tattoo-worthy?

Every author wants to write a book like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. Two decades after it first hit the shelves, the author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow celebrates its daring, dazzling appealPity the writer who believes they have written the next Cloud Atlas! A literary agent once told me that when a fledgling writer compares their novel to David Mitchell’s, he invariably knows it will be awful. Once you have written a book like Cloud Atlas, you have not written Cloud Atlas because Cloud Atlas is not like anything.When the novel was published in 2004, critics compared it to everything. AS Byatt in the Guardian invokes Herman Melville, Raymond Chandler, Martin Amis, George Orwell and Ursula K Le Guin among others. Tom Bissell in the New York Times adds to the mix Cervantes, Defoe, Isherwood, William S Burroughs, and, in a last paragraph twist, James Joyce’s Ulysses. Theo Tait of the Telegraph writes in a rare negative review that “Cloud Atlas spends half its time wanting to be The Simpsons and the other half the Bible.” This line is funny more than apt, but had I read it at the time, it would have sold the book to me. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2024-04-06 10:00:31 UTC ]

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-07-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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‘Dubliners’ At 100

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Literary Agent Q&A: Sedef Ilgiç, Kalem Agency in Turkey

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[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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BEA 2014: David Mitchell: Six Worlds, One New Novel

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-05-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sceptre launches dedicated Bone Clocks website

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[ The Bookseller | 2014-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2014-04-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Obituary: Bill Adler, 84

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-03-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Helen Mackenzie Smith joins Bell Lomax Moreton

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[ The Bookseller | 2014-01-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Lindsay Lohan reportedly at work on a book about her life

Lindsay Lohan now has a literary agent, according to TMZ. And where a literary agent with celebrity clients goes, book deals tend to follow.Lindsay Lohan now has a literary agent, according to TMZ. And where a literary agent with celebrity clients goes, book deals tend to follow. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Laetitia Rutherford joins Watson, Little

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[ The Bookseller | 2013-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Scribd, HarperCollins deal casts long digital shadow

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[ Crains New York | 2013-10-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Elmore Leonard: Michael Connelly hails the book world's king of cool

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-08-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Can Foreign Authors Use China’s Social Media to Acquire Readers?

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[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-08-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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George Zimmerman juror dropped by literary agent, won't write book

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-07-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Why Did They Let Her on the Zimmerman Jury?

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[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-06-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-05-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Sunday Conversation: Martin Amis talks 'Lionel Asbo,' money

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