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The Book of M: A Novel Paperback – June 25 2019
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Brad Thor's Summer 2018 Fiction Pick for THE TODAY SHOW!
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY Elle • Refinery29 • PopSugar • Verge
Author of LA Times Prize finalist The Cartographers
“The Book of M is devastating and inventive as Shepherd examines the value of memory, packing in imaginative twists as she goes.” —USA Today
"Eerie, dark, and compelling, [The Book of M] will not disappoint lovers of The Passage and Station Eleven." —Booklist
WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE UP TO REMEMBER?
Set in a dangerous near future world, The Book of M tells the captivating story of a group of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe who risk everything to save the ones they love. It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself.
One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man’s shadow disappears—an occurrence science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.
Ory and his wife Max have escaped the Forgetting so far by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day Max’s shadow disappears too.
Knowing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to Ory, Max runs away. But Ory refuses to give up the time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memory disappears completely, he follows her trail across a perilous, unrecognizable world, braving the threat of roaming bandits, the call to a new war being waged on the ruins of the capital, and the rise of a sinister cult that worships the shadowless.
As they journey, each searches for answers: for Ory, about love, about survival, about hope; and for Max, about a new force growing in the south that may hold the cure.
Like The Passage and Station Eleven, this haunting, thought-provoking, and beautiful novel explores fundamental questions of memory, connection, and what it means to be human in a world turned upside down.
Don't miss the latest captivating novel by Peng Shepherd:
The Cartographers
- Print length496 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWilliam Morrow Paperbacks
- Publication dateJune 25 2019
- Dimensions13.49 x 2.01 x 20.32 cm
- ISBN-100062669613
- ISBN-13978-0062669612
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The Cartographers | All This and More | |
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Customer Reviews |
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Product description
Review
“This is an apocalyptic thriller with heart. . . . The Book of M is devastating and inventive as Shepherd examines the value of memory, packing in imaginative twists as she goes.” — USA Today
"Eerily magical . . . At the heart of the novel is a timeless question about the meaning of memory." — Time
"I love a good dystopian page-turner, and Peng Shepherd’s debut novel is the real deal. . . . Shepherd mixes in elements of multiple genres, like post-apocalyptic thriller and fantasy. But at its core, it’s a meditation on memories and personhood, as Shepherd asks which one defines the other." — Elle
“It is an incredible concept, and she is a brilliant, brilliant new fiction writer. This is someone who you’re eventually going to have on this couch—she’s that good.” — Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on the Today show
“I was both disturbed and inspired by Max’s and Ory’s journey through apocalypses large and small. Peng Shepherd has written a prescient, dark fable for the now and for the soon-to-be. The Book of M is our beautiful nightmare shadow.” — Paul Tremblay, award-winning author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World
“Sheperd’s debut is graceful and riveting, slowly peeling back layers of an intricately constructed and unsettling alternate future.” — Publishers Weekly
“Eerie, dark, and compelling, this will not disappoint lovers of The Passage (2010) and Station Eleven (2014).” — Booklist
“Brilliant debut . . . The Book of M is right up there with Station Eleven: achingly beautiful literary novels about a changed world.” — Refinery29
“A beautiful and haunting story about the power of memory and the necessity of human connection, this book is a post-apocalypticmasterpiece and the one dystopian novel you really need to read this year.” — Bustle
“The Book of M is exciting, imaginative, unique, and beautiful. Shepherd proves herself not just a writer to watch, but a writer to treasure.” — Darin Strauss, bestselling author of Half a Life
“Prepare to fall in love with your own shadow. And to lose sleep. Shepherd is urgently good, and has written one of those books that makes you look up at two in the morning, to a world that’s new, newly scary, and freshly appreciated: what all the great stories do.” — David Lipsky, New York Times bestselling author of Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself and Absolutely American
“A beautifully written existential apocalypse, following everyday people on a search for love, memory and meaning across the richly realized and frighteningly familiar ruins of America.” — Christopher Brown, author of Tropic of Kansas
“First-time novelist Shepherd has crafted an engaging and twisty tale about memory’s impact on who or what we become. For aficionados of literary dystopian fiction such as Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven or those who enjoy stories of cross-country travel.” — Library Journal
“Fans of Station Eleven, listen up!...This one is g-r-e-a-t.” — Book Riot
“Outstanding and unforgettable . . .The Book of Mis a scary, surprising, sad and sentimental story that will be deeply felt by readers while capturing their imaginations and hearts.” — BookPage (Top Fiction Pick)
“For fans of Station Eleven, this summer release will have you engulfed from beginning to end.” — Popsugar
“[Shepherd’s] first novel, The Book of M, tells the fantastic story of ordinary people caught up in a catastrophe in which people lose their shadows — and their memories.” — PBS (Arizona)
“Beautifully written, Peng Shepherd delivers an extraordinary story about love, hope, the unquenchable search for answers that may never come, and, ultimately, survival . . . The characters all have such depth to them that it’s impossible to not become invested in the story, which twists and turns often.” — The Real Book Spy
“The Book of M tells the captivating story of a group of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe who risk everything to save the ones they love. It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself.” — The Nerd Daily
“Reminiscent of books like Stephen King’s The Stand, Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, and Michael Tolkin’s NK3 . . . she keeps the journey interesting, makes us care about her characters, and invites us to think about how we are all the stuff of dreams.” — Toronto Star
“The Book of M shines consistently, first in the sense of magical wonder that permeates each of its pages, and second, in the emotional depth that Shepherd is able to draw out of her characters... brutal and brilliant in equal measure.” — The Contemporary Clerk
“In her debut novel, The Book of M, Peng Shepherd has created a fantastical scenario where people not only lose their past but can also re-create the world any way they want . . . Shepherd’s tale pushes the post-apocalyptic story in a new and exciting direction, making readers ponder questions about reality, self-perception and relationships.” — Shelf Awareness
“Captivating . . . Like The Passage and Station Eleven, this haunting, thought-provoking, and beautiful novel explores fundamental questions of memory, connection, and what it means to be human in a world turned upside down.” — TheMarySue.com
From the Back Cover
One afternoon at an outdoor market in india, a man’s shadow disappears—an occurrence that science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, the magic comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.
Two years later, Ory and his wife, Max, have escaped the Forgetting by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods outside Arlington, Virginia. Their new life feels almost normal, until their greatest fear happens to them, and Max’s shadow disappears too. Knowing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to the person most precious to her, Max runs away while Ory is out foraging for supplies—but he refuses to give up what little time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memory disappears completely, Ory follows her trail across a perilous, unrecognizable world, braving the threat of roaming bandits, the call to a new war being waged amid the ruins of the capital, and the rise of a sinister cult that worships the shadowless. On their separate journeys, each searches for answers: for Ory, about love, about survival, about hope; and for Max, about a mysterious new force growing in the south that may hold the cure.
About the Author
Peng Shepherd was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, and has lived in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, London, New York, and Mexico City.
Her second novel, The Cartographers, became a national bestseller, was named a Best Book of 2022 by The Washington Post, and received a 2020 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her debut, The Book of M, won the 2019 Neukom Institute for Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative Fiction, and was chosen as a best book of the year by Amazon, Elle, Refinery29, and The Verge, as well as a best book of the summer by the Today show and NPR’s On Point.
Product details
- Publisher : William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (June 25 2019)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 496 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062669613
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062669612
- Item weight : 351 g
- Dimensions : 13.49 x 2.01 x 20.32 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: #385,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #304 in Canadian Women Writers
- #4,847 in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction (Books)
- #22,057 in Suspense (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Peng Shepherd is the nationally bestselling author of The Cartographers, The Book of M, and The Future Library.
Her second novel, The Cartographers, was a USA Today bestseller, a national Independent Bookstores bestseller, and was named a Best Book of 2022 by The Washington Post, as well as a Pick of the Month by Good Morning America, Amazon, Apple, Real Simple, Buzzfeed, Bustle, and Goodreads, and was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition.
Her first novel, The Book of M, won the 2019 Neukom Institute for Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative Fiction, and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, Elle, Refinery29, and The Verge, a Best Book of the Summer by the Today Show and NPR On Point, and has been optioned for television.
A graduate of New York University's MFA program, Peng is the recipient of a 2020 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
She was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where she rode horses and trained in classical ballet, and has lived in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, London, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New York, and Mexico City.
When not writing, she can be found planning her next trip or haunting local bookstores.
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More disturbingly, they start losing their memories. They become a form of zombies that roam the world without purpose or understanding, often acting violent. More disturbingly is that the shadowless obtain magical powers - in their efforts to remember who they are, their world, their fragments of memory become real - a twisted Dali-esque landscape of misshapened houses, grotesque creatures, inexplicable weather patterns...
The story focuses on a few central characters, namely Orlando Zhang and his wife Max who are attending a friend's wedding at a mountain resort in Virginia when they hear news of the "plague" has reached the US. They opt to stay put and 2 years later civilization no longer exists. Then one day Max loses her shadow. Fearful of what might happen if she mis-remembers Orlando, she leaves without telling him, which sends Orlando on a search for his wife.
And so begins their separate journeys, and the people, shadowless and shadowed, they meet along their way. Unknownst to each other, they are both drawn south, to New Orleans where rumors of a man that exists, who goes by different names, "The One with a Middle but No Beginning", "The One with No Eyes", "The Stillmind" - A Saviour? or something else?
Its a mesmermizing tale, a surreal, post-appocolpytic horror story that touches deeply on what it means to human, and surprisingly, ends on an optimistic note.
One of the best books I've read in a long time.
I’ll just say if you’re someone who likes a good, complete ending, likes answers at the end of a story, and for loose ends to be tied up....well, this ain’t it. Lol
This is the story of Max and Ory, a couple where one loses her shadow and the other keeps his. We watch Max as her memories fade away until all she remembers is her love for Ory, told in the first person so we feel the full horror of experiencing the slow and unstoppable loss of self. Though there is plenty of action in the story, this book is really a deep exploration of what makes us who we are, and what is left when we can no longer remember who we were.
The reality the author brings to this process is stunning. The writing is amazingly good, each word seemingly precisely chosen for the greatest impact. It is unbelievable that this is the author's first novel, the writing is so assured and compelling. This is definitely a book I will remember for a long time.
Very highly recommended!
Top reviews from other countries
I had a tiny bit of trouble with the personality of the shadow figure (I don’t want to give any spoilers). It made more sense when I had time to think about the book when I was finished - if you read it and think the same thing, just remember what form the shadow is in and it helps understand the slight personality change before and after the hurricane.
I do agree with some low reviews that the timeline and a few other points were not logical, but it was well worth overlooking and was easy for me to do so with the fluidity of the storyline. I was surprised at how much I loved it.
Mitten in dieser Welt begleitet der Leser ein Ehepaar, eine iranische Athletin und ein Unfallopfer ohne Erinnerungen.
Die Ausgangslage ist sehr interessant und vor allem das unverbrauchte Setting ist wirklich gelungen. Dennoch bin ich zwiegespalten über die Qualität des Romans. Das Szenario ist sehr gut entworfen, aber nicht zu Ende gedacht. Insbesondere die Magie der Schattenlose schwankt zwischen absurd lächerlich und absolut zahnlos. Auch wird die Magie zu wenig erklärt bzw. wirkt nicht wirklich in die Welt eingebettet.
Ebenso werden alle enttäuscht sein, welche eine Erklärung für die Vorkommnisse wünschen. Diese wird leider nicht gegeben.
Die Geschichte ist grundsätzlich spannend und die Protagonisten sind sympathisch und man fiebert um ihr Überleben mit. Dennoch ist Handlung eher länglich erzählt und eine etwas temporeichere und kürzere Erzählweise wäre wünschenswert gewesen.
Die Handlungsstränge verweben sich mit fortschreitender Seitenzahl, enden jedoch unbefriedigend, so wie das das gesamte Ende eher abrupt und so la la ist. Es scheint ein bisschen, als die Autorin nicht mehr weiter wusste und die Handlung einfach enden liess.
Fazit: Die Autorin hat eine geniale Grundlage entworfen hat, aber zu wenig daraus gemacht. Das Szenario vermisst Details, die Story ist länglich mit Ungereimtheiten und das Ende unbefriedigend. Dennoch sei das Buch den Freunden der apokalyptischen Literatur empfohlen. Alle anderen können getrost etwas anderes Lesen, ohne etwas zu verpassen.