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The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Longlisted for the Booker Prize

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The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

By: David Mitchell
Narrated by: Paula Wilcox, Tim Pigott-Smith
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Summary

 **Pre-order UTOPIA AVENUE, the spectacular new novel from David Mitchell.**


The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller, from the author of CLOUD ATLAS and THE BONE CLOCKS.

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010

Be transported to a place like no other: a tiny, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki, for two hundred years the sole gateway between Japan and the West. Here, in the dying days of the 18th-century, a young Dutch clerk arrives to make his fortune. Instead he loses his heart.

Step onto the streets of Dejima and mingle with scheming traders, spies, interpreters, servants and concubines as two cultures converge. In a tale of integrity and corruption, passion and power, the key is control - of riches and minds, and over death itself.

(P)2010 Hodder & Stoughton©2010 David Mitchell Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Heartfelt
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Critic reviews

Compared with almost everything being written now, it is vertiginously ambitious - and brilliant . . . He can write as thrillingly about large-scale events as he can about the tiny details of the private world . . . turned one way this novel is a thriller with a glittering seam of a love story running through it (or is it the other way round?); turned another, it is a sumptuous historical novel on the collision of cultures caught at a particular crossroads of history (Neel Mukherjee)
Stunning (Books of the Year)
As compelling as it is strange, the novel is testament to the originality of Mitchell's vision and his great craftiness as a storyteller
A heady potion of betrayal, love, superstition, power politics and murder . . . And all this in the most extraordinary prose
However densely charted and richly sketched, this sumptuous imbroglio never drags . . . Mitchell flexes his prose virtuosity. More than before, those muscles do the heart's work
Moving, thoughtful and unexpectedly funny (Books of the Year)
Hugely enjoyable . . . It cracks along, holding us in suspense from the beginning
Masterpieces make their own rules, and this book is definitely one of them
David Mitchell is back with a bang . . . superb
Ambitious and fascinating . . . Comparisons to Tolstoy are inevitable, and right on the money
A pitch-perfect masterclass in the art, and magic, of narrative (Books of the Year)
A marvel - entirely original among contemporary British novels, revealing its author as, surely, the most impressive fictional mind of his generation
A formidable marvel
Extraordinarily entertaining and well-realised (A. S. Byatt)
For a tour de force, it's surprisingly nimble, emotionally complex and simply unforgettable (Stuart Kelly)
Almost every sentence shimmers with precise, opaque and brilliantly realised writing . . . An historical novel on a deliberately grand scale, it never loses its quiet intimacy
The details are fascinating and the prose beautiful . . . simply magnificent
Sharp, hilarious, exhilarating stuff. Utterly enjoyable
An affecting conclusion underscores Mr Mitchell's mastery here not only of virtuosic literary fireworks, but also of the quieter arts of empathy and traditional storytelling (Michiko Kakutani)
Dazzles with its density and intensity, its ambition and grandeur
Mitchell's masterpiece; and also, I am convinced, a masterpiece of our time
The novelist who's shown us fiction's future has written a classic tale . . . an epic of sacrificial love, clashing civilizations and enemies who won't rest until whole family lines have been snuffed out
A vastly entertaining historical novel, giving the reader a glimpse into a world we know so little of and charting a fascinating period of history
All stars
Most relevant
I love the book and this is a great performance, but it's an abridged version which loses some of the original's delicate beauty (and some elements of the story) in exchange for brevity. If I'd known, I'd have waited for the unabridged version

Great, but...

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In order to help the listener along , geo - guidance utterly naff music was played . For example when the action shifted from Japan to onboard the British ship , the horn pipe was played . When it shifted back to Japan , twangy , cliched strings were plucked . Ugh . Tim Pigott Smith plating all parts was just too much . Had the potential to be gripping . It was not .

Terrifically irritating music

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