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Stoner
John Williams
This is the story of a quiet man, destined to be a farmer but who becomes an academic. It is book in which nothing and everything happens and is possibly the greatest novel you've never read.
'It's simply a novel about a guy who goes to college and becomes a teacher. But its one of the most fascinating things that you've ever come across' Tom Hanks, Time
William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death, his colleagues remember him rarely.
Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value - of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history - and in doing so reclaims the significance of an individual life.
'A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life' Ian McEwan
'A brilliant, beautiful, inexorably sad, wise and elegant novel' Nick Hornby
INTRODUCED BY JOHN McGAHERN
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About John Williams
Reviews for Stoner
Julian Barnes It's simply a novel about a guy who goes to college and becomes a teacher. But its one of the most fascinating things that you've ever come across
Tom Hanks
Time
I was stunned by it... beautifully written in simple but brilliant prose, a novel of an ordinary life, an examination of a quiet tragedy, the work of a great but little-known writer
Guardian
One of the great unheralded 20th century American novels...Almost perfect
Bret Easton Ellis One of the great forgotten novels of the past century. I have bought at least 50 copies of it in the past few years, using it as a gift for friends. It is universally adored by writers and readers alike...so beautifully paced and cadenced that it deserves the status of classic
Guardian
A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life… I’m amazed a novel this good escaped general attention for so long
Ian McEwan A brilliant, beautiful, inexorably sad, wise, and elegant novel
The Believer
Something rarer than a great novel
it is a perfect novel, so well told and beautifully written, so deeply moving, that it takes your breath away...few stories this sad could be so secretly triumphant, or so exhilarating.
New York Times
A beautiful and moving novel, as sweeping, intimate and mysterious as life itself
Geoff Dyer The most extraordinary work of fiction I've read in a long time... If you're looking for a book that's simple and subtle, warmly human and at the same time utterly pitiless in his rendition of the vicissitudes of an ordinary existence, here's one you will read again and again
New Statesman
Unquestionably one of the finest novels of the 20th century, its genius lies in its candour and in prose that simmers with subtle intent.
Irish Times
The word-of-mouth hit of the summer. Read it and you’ll see why
Daily Telegraph
It’s as if this novel is about all of us: our hopes, disappointments and sorrows… a lesson in values, told with love and awe
Bel Mooney
Daily Mail
A wonderful novel, rich and sombre, a record of pain and less but also of moments of vision and tenderness... flawless
Adam Foulds
Independent