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Great Circle: The soaring and emotional novel shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021
Maggie Shipstead
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Description for Great Circle: The soaring and emotional novel shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021
Paperback.
THE SENSATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
Amazon Book of the Year
Time Magazine Book of the Year
Waterstones fiction Book of the Month
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'A GRIPPING HISTORICAL ADVENTURE' STYLIST
'SO BEAUTIFUL, SO DARING, SO COMPLETE' TAYLOR JENKINS REID
'A MASTERPIECE' NIGELLA LAWSON
EXTRAORDINARY' NEW YORK TIMES
'WONDERFUL' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING MAGAZINE
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A soaring, breathtakingly ambitious novel that weaves together the astonishing lives of a 1950s vanished female aviator and the modern-day Hollywood actress who plays her on screen.
Marian Graves ... Read moreis driven by a need for freedom and danger. From her days as a wild child in prohibition America to the blitz and glitz of wartime London, she is determined to live an independent life.
But it is an obsession with flight that consumes her most.
Having become one of the most fearless pilots in her time, she sets out to do what no one has done before: to circumnavigate the globe from pole to pole.
But shortly before completing the journey, her plane disappears, lost to history.
Over half a century later, troubled film star Hadley Baxter is offered to play Marian in the comeback role of a lifetime. From the first pages of the script, Hadley is drawn inexorably to the female pilot.
It is a role that will lead her to an unexpected discovery, throwing fresh and spellbinding light on the story of the unknowable Marian Graves.
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WATERSTONES FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH JUNE 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021
A ROYAL READING ROOM PICK 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA GOLD CROWN 2022
TIME MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER MAY 2021
TIMES BESTSELLER JUNE 2022
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'Full of adventure, passion and tragedy' THE TIMES
'Soars from the very first page' SUNDAY EXPRESS
'Luminous, masterful. Glides seamlessly through the 20th century' TELEGRAPH, Best Fiction of 2021
'Breathtaking' OBSERVER
'Truly exceptional storytelling, combining a sweeping arc of history with writing that, at sentence level, is near-flawless.' THE BOOKSELLER
'A tour-de-force' DAILY EXPRESS
'Impressive and gripping' SUNDAY TIMES
'Surprising and moving at every turn' GUARDIAN
'Audacious and Immersive' DAILY MAIL
'Accomplished and ambitious' FINANCIAL TIMES
Readers love GREAT CIRCLE:
***** What a read! Immense story with beautifully created characters
***** The story is so well researched and planned; historical fiction standing side by side with history itself
***** This is a stunning achievement, my perspective feels fundamentally transformed through reading it
***** A wonderful saga, covering a large chunk of the twentieth century
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Product Details
Publisher
Transworld Publishers Ltd
Place of Publication
, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 2 to 4 working days
About Maggie Shipstead
MAGGIE SHIPSTEAD is the author of the New York Times bestselling novels SEATING ARRANGEMENTS - winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and L A Times Book Prize for First Fiction - ASTONISH ME and the Booker-shortlisted GREAT CIRCLE. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Guardian, Conde Nast Traveller, The Best American Short Stories and elsewhere. She is ... Read morea graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. YOU HAVE A FRIEND IN 10A is her first story collection. Maggie Shipstead grew up in California and lives in Los Angeles, California. Show Less
Reviews for Great Circle: The soaring and emotional novel shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021
Luminous, masterful ... glides seamlessly through the 20th century immersing the reader. Tremendously well-written
TELEGRAPH, 'Best Fiction of 2021'
A gripping historical adventure that feels sharp, fresh and modern
STYLIST MAGAZINE
Shipstead turns phrases and observes people beautifully. Full of adventure, passion and tragedy... a glorious tribute to women who push the boundaries of their one, ... Read morebrief life, breaking the bonds of their place in history and their female bodies, to soar higher and faster than others; and the price they pay to live so fast
THE TIMES, 'Best Fiction of 2021'
Impressive and gripping
SUNDAY TIMES
What's so impressive is how deeply we care about each of these people, and how the shape and texture of each of their stories collide to build a story all its own. GREAT CIRCLE grasps for and ultimately reaches something extraordinary
NEW YORK TIMES
The Marian portions rove from Montana to Manhattan to Scotland and Antarctica, and read like a carnival of early-20th-century American history, packed with bootleggers, treacherous boxcar rides, and tragic shipwrecks. The Hadley chapters offer a delectable dissection of life as a celebrity, serving up an intelligent skewering of the Hollywood machine and allowing the book to take flight
VOGUE
GREAT CIRCLE is a novel of our insatiable need to stare down the terrible, magnificent vastness of it all: love, war, desire, fear ... A sweeping, swashbuckling book, full of oversaturated colour and grand destiny. The joy of this dynamic, soaring novel is not a welcome extra but its very engine
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Encompasses flight, travel adventure, identity, sexuality, family, the celebrity age - and in such beautiful writing. A masterpiece.
NIGELLA LAWSON
Rocked by the cool cadences of Shipstead's prose, readers will embark on a journey through time and space. Across 600 pages, they'll link arms with its characters as they stroll along the decks of early-1900s ocean liners, then board private jets to eavesdrop on the poolside parties of 21st-century Hollywood. They'll spot eagles arcing over the wild frontiers of Prohibition-era America then feel the lonely, existential chill of the white expanses of Antarctica - in between city breaks in Europe and Australia
INDEPENDENT
This wonderful novel weaves together the story of two women: a female aviator who goes missing in the1950s and the Hollywood star playing her in a film in the present day. A commitment that rewards with memorable characters and vivid storytelling
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, 'Best Fiction of 2021'
From near-death experience in childhood, to marriage to a bootlegger, Marian rockets off the page in this gripping novel. A staggering story
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH MAGAZINE
Accomplished and ambitious... Most novelists have their limits and cut their cloth accordingly. Shipstead is a writer who can vividly summon whatever she chooses, taking the reader deep inside the world she creates.
FINANCIAL TIMES
A clever, poignant story about ambition, love and sacrifice that'll completely draw you in
COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE
This ambitious, wide-ranging and psychologically insightful novel is a tour-de-force
DAILY EXPRESS
It is rare to read a novel that is as beautifully built as it is elegantly written. Moving and surprising at every turn
GUARDIAN
A gorgeous soaring story that takes flight from the very first page
SUNDAY EXPRESS
Vast and entrancing
BA HIGH LIFE
A riveting novel with powerful characters that will excite, shock and enthral
PSYCHOLOGIES MAGAZINE
Nothing short of brilliant
OPRAH DAILY
A work of epic proportions and rich, cinematic detail
FINANCIAL TIMES, BEST OF SUMMER BOOKS
Grand, audacious and completely engrossing
DAILY MIRROR
This epic novel tops 600 pages but you'll still want more. Ambitious, cannily constructed and entertaining
MAIL ON SUNDAY
Beautifully written and endlessly readable, this rapturous novel soars
GUARDIAN
Ambitious, intricately detailed, rich and considered
INDEPENDENT
A WOMAN'S WEEKLY BOOK CLUB READ
MY WEEKLY
Daringly ambitious... a novel that invites the reader to immerse themselves in the sweep of history, the rich and detailed research... breathtaking
OBSERVER
Great Circle is an epic trip-through Prohibition and World War II, from Montana to London to present-day Hollywood-and you'll relish every minute
PEOPLE MAGAZINE
Glitz and guts square off in Great Circle: a tale of two women set apart by a century, fighting to retain control of their own lives in a society that demands subservience. Shipstead is adept at writing so vividly, the reader can feel the thrill and pain of her characters. Cunningly crafted. . . richly layered, a joy to read . . . riveting
THE SPOKESMAN REVIEW
Mesmerizing
TATLER
An enthralling epic about aviation and adventure. A big, baggy blast of a book bulging with sex and drugs, taking in Prohibition-era Montana, wartime London, present-day Hollywood, painting and physics. I loved it
REBECCA JONES, BBC ARTS CORRESPONDENT
A generous, escapist treat
i-PAPER, 30 BEST BOOKS FOR SUMMER
A soaring epic of female adventure and wanderlust
GUARDIAN
Bestselling novelist Maggie Shipstead was struggling to depict a female adventurer. So she became one. The stakes of GREAT CIRCLE are high-for its heroine, literally life or death. Though Shipstead never learned to fly herself, she aligned with her main character Marian Graves in more important ways . . . She is interested in testing her limits
L A TIMES
Relentlessly exciting . . . My top recommendation for this summer. Shipstead's sweeping new female-centered epic intertwines the story of Marian, an aviator who wants to circumnavigate the globe with that of actor Hadley Baxter, cast a century later to play Marian in a film. What can Marian's life tell Hadley about her own?
WASHINGTON POST
Dazzling prose in the service of an expansive story that covers more than a century and seems to encapsulate the whole wide world. With detailed brilliance, she lavishes heart and empathy on every character. She never wavers, pulls out a twist or two that feel fully earned, and then sticks the landing
BOSTON GLOBE
Swinging from one century to the next, from the moneyed splendor of cities to the shifting Antarctic ice, Shipstead's prose overflows with meticulous detail
MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
Enthralling. Moving and surprising at every turn
GUARDIAN
Sweepingly panoramic and immersive. An audacious epic
DAILY MAIL, 'Best Fiction of 2021'
In a moment when our quarantined worlds have become so small, GREAT CIRCLE offers more than just wanderlust; it feels like a liberation.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Maggie Shipstead combines cinematic scope with a poet's eye for detail
THE TIMES
The beginning of Maggie Shipstead's astounding novel, a Booker finalist, includes a series of endings: two plane crashes, a sunken ship and several people dead. The bad luck continues when one of the ship's young survivors, Marian, grows up to become a pilot-only to disappear on the job. Shipstead unravels parallel narratives, Marian's and that of another woman whose life is changed by Marian's story, in glorious detail. Every character, whether mentioned once or 50 times, has a specific, necessary presence. It's a narrative made to be devoured, one that is both timeless and satisfying.
TIME, BOOK OF THE YEAR
Absolutely dazzling
NEWSWEEK
Thrilling
DAILY MAIL
GREAT CIRCLE flew us to a different world. A book to devour
TELEGRAPH, BOOK OF THE YEAR
A sweeping saga that alternates between the life of a tenacious female aviator in the 1930s and that of a millennial film star cast to play her in a biopic. In death, 'each of us destroys the world,' the author observes - but her engrossing novel is a moving reflection on the will to survive
THE ECONOMIST
Artfully constructed and exhuberantly entertaining
THE MAIL, BOOK OF THE YEAR
Shipstead soars in this expansive, beautiful novel about women and flight
THE STRAITS TIMES
Engrossing, ambitious, beautifully written
DAILY EXPESS, Summer Reading
Completely engrossing from the very first page. You won't be able to put this down
HELLO MAGAZINE
A brilliant saga of a book. It will absolutely captivate you
JANE GARVEY, Fortunately Podcast
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