Most Popular Books by Matthew Kneale

“This magnificent love letter to Rome” (Stephen Greenblatt) tells the story of the Eternal City through pivotal moments that defined its history—from the early Roman Republic through the Renaissance and the Reformation to the German occupation in World War Two—“an erudite history that reads like a page-turner” (Maria Semple). Rome, the Eternal City. It is a hugely popular tourist destination with a rich history, famed for such sites as the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon, St. Peter’s, and the Vatican. In no other city is history as present as it is in Rome. Today visitors can stand on bridges that Julius Caesar and Cicero crossed; walk around temples in the footsteps of emperors; visit churches from the earliest days of Christianity. This is all the more remarkable considering what the city has endured over the centuries. It has been ravaged by fires, floods, earthquakes, and—most of all—by roving armies. These have invaded repeatedly, from ancient times to as recently as 1943. Many times Romans have shrugged off catastrophe and remade their city anew. “Matthew Kneale [is] one step ahead of most other Roman chroniclers” (The New York Times Book Review). He paints portraits of the city before seven pivotal assaults, describing what it looked like, felt like, smelled like and how Romans, both rich and poor, lived their everyday lives. He shows how the attacks transformed Rome—sometimes for the better. With drama and humor he brings to life the city of Augustus, of Michelangelo and Bernini, of Garibaldi and Mussolini, and of popes both saintly and very worldly. Rome is “exciting…gripping…a slow roller-coaster ride through the fortunes of a place deeply entangled in its past” (The Wall Street Journal).

Nine-year-old Lawrence is the man in his family. He carefully watches over his willful little sister, Jemima, and his mother, Hannah. When Hannah becomes convinced that their estranged father is stalking them, the family flees London and heads for Rome, where Hannah lived happily as a young woman. For Lawrence, fascinated by stories of popes and emperors, Rome is an adventure. Though they are short of money, and move from home to home, staying with his mother’s old friends, little by little their new life seems to be taking shape. But the trouble that brought them to Italy will not quite leave them in peace. Narrated in Lawrence’s perfectly rendered voice, When We Were Romans powerfully evokes the emotions and confusions of childhood — the triumphs, the jealousies, the fears, and the love. Even as everything he understands is turned upside down, Lawrence remains determined to keep his family together, viewing the world from a perspective that is at once endearingly innocent and preternaturally wise.

In 1857 when Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of rum smugglers from the Isle of Man have most of their contraband confiscated by British Customs, they are forced to put their ship up for charter. The only takers are two eccentric Englishmen who want to embark for the other side of the globe. The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson believes the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania. His traveling partner, Dr. Thomas Potter, unbeknownst to Wilson, is developing a sinister thesis about the races of men. Meanwhile, an aboriginal in Tasmania named Peevay recounts his people’s struggles against the invading British, a story that begins in 1824, moves into the present with approach of the English passengers in 1857, and extends into the future in 1870. These characters and many others come together in a storm of voices that vividly bring a past age to life.

A The Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year''An enthralling and wonderfully vivid novel from a master storyteller'' Joseph O''Connor''Kneale''s medieval world is animated with a refreshing lightness of touch'' Sunday Telegraph1289. A rich farmer fears he''ll go to hell for cheating his neighbours. His wife wants pilgrim badges to sew into her hat and show off at church. A poor, ragged villager is convinced his beloved cat is suffering in the fires of purgatory and must be rescued. A mother believes her son''s dangerous illness is punishment for her own adultery and seeks forgiveness so he may be cured. A landlord is in trouble with the church after he punched an abbot on the nose. A sexually driven noblewoman seeks a divorce so she can marry her new young beau.These are among a ragtag band of pilgrims that sets off on the tough and dangerous journey from England to Rome, where they hope all their troubles and their prayers will be answered. Some in the group, however, have their own secret reasons for going. Others, while they might aspire to piety, succumb all too often to the sins of the flesh.A riveting, sweeping novel of medieval society and historic Englishness, Pilgrims illuminates the fallibility of humans, the absurdities and consolations of belief, and the very real violence at the heart of religious fervour.

In June, 2006, Picador launch Picador Shots, a new series of pocket-sized books priced at £1. The Shots aim to promote the short story as well as the work of some Picador''s greatest authors. They will be contemporarily packaged but ultimately disposable books that are the ideal literary alternative to a magazine. Matthew Kneale''s ''Powder'' is to be one of the first Picador Shots. One of the stories from his recent collection, Small Crimes In An Age of Abundance, ''Powder'' is an effecting, darkly funny story about Peter, a middle of the road, solicitor, who lives in a suburban street in London. His kids are leaving home and he is finding it hard to keep up with the neighbours and his colleagues at work, until, one day on his local common he discovers a large bag with a mobile phone and hundreds of plastic bags full of cocaine inside. What Peter decides to do with this bag, a decision he makes in a split second, will change his life for ever. In ''Powder'' Matthew Kneale has vividly captured the life on an ordinary person as he struggles to survive and do the ‘right thing’, and, in the end, managing neither.

The author of the award-winning novel English Passengers takes readers around the world in twelve deftly crafted stories that illuminate the uncertainties of life at home and abroad. Matthew Kneale received high praise for the prize-winning English Passengers, an epic romp on the high seas and across nineteenth-century cultures, ingeniously woven together by a multitude of narrators. In Small Crimes In An Age of Abundance, Kneale brings his mastery of storytelling to our present morally ambiguous world. Set in lands ranging from England to China, South America, the Middle East, and Africa, these powerfully themed stories follow ordinary people as they try to survive and make sense of their worlds. We follow a well-intentioned English family who leave their tour group in China to travel alone, and collide with the ruthless side of the country, slowly becoming complicit in its violence; a ploddingly respectable London lawyer who chances upon a stash of cocaine and realizes it offers the wealth and status he hungers for; a salesman in Africa who becomes caught up in a riot that turns his life upside down; a self-doubting suicide bomber. Kneale transports readers across continents in a nanosecond, reaching to the heart of faraway societies with rare perceptiveness. As the stories gain momentum — tense, funny, and always compassionate — they make readers see the world in a new way. At times reminiscent of Julian Barnes’s A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, at times Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, Small Crimes In An Age of Abundance is a groundbreaking book, by a master narrator of the uncertainties of our time.

The atheist’s poetic synopsis of the history of spirituality and religion from the Man Booker shortlisted author of English Passengers What first prompted prehistoric man, sheltering in the shadows of deep caves, to call upon the realm of the spirits? And why has belief thrived since, shaping thousands of generations of shamans, pharaohs, Aztec priests and Mayan rulers, Jews, Buddhists, Christians, Nazis, and Scientologists? As our dreams and nightmares have changed over the millennia, so have our beliefs. The gods we created have evolved and mutated with us through a narrative fraught with human sacrifice, political upheaval and bloody wars. Belief was man''s most epic labor of invention. It has been our closest companion, and has followed mankind across the continents and through history.

A captivating, thought-provoking road trip through a rapidly changing Europe in the 1930s from the award-winning and Sunday Times bestselling author of Sweet Thames and Rome: A History in Seven Sackings.

Por que e em que as pessoas acreditam? Num mundo em que mesmo os não crentes vivem cercados pela fé religiosa dos mais diferentes credos, buscar explicações para conceitos como pecado, Paraíso, Céu ou Inferno ajuda a revelar um pouco mais sobre nós e sobre o mundo em que vivemos. Este livro é um passeio movido pela curiosidade do autor em questionar o que as pessoas acreditam. Embora tenha examinado crenças da China, da Índia e do Oriente Médio – bem como as religiões dos maias, astecas e incas –, a obra dedica uma especial atenção ao cristianismo, ao judaísmo e ao islamismo, sem se limitar, no entanto, a examinar exclusivamente a crença religiosa. O autor repassa também alguns credos que, acredita-se, são puramente políticos, como o marxismo, refletindo como, de certa forma, essas ideologias se assemelham a religiões.

Nenhuma cidade da Terra preservou tão bem seu passado quanto Roma. Visitantes podem atravessar pontes antes cruzadas por Cícero e Júlio César, explorar templos ocupados pelos imperadores romanos e entrar em igrejas que praticamente não mudaram desde as primeiras missas celebradas ali por papas, dezesseis séculos atrás. Essa longevidade arquitetônica é ainda mais notável considerando os muitos desastres que afligiram a cidade. Roma sofreu terremotos, inundações, incêndios, pragas e foi, sobretudo, devastada repetidamente por exércitos invasores. Dos gauleses aos alemães nazistas – passando pelos godos, normandos, espanhóis, luteranos e franceses –, Matthew Kneale nos conta as histórias por trás das sete invasões mais importantes e revela, com percepção fascinante, as marcas que cada invasor deixou na cidade e como elas transformaram seus aspectos social, econômico e cultural. Utilizando uma abordagem totalmente inovadora do passado de Roma, Kneale desvenda como ela se tornou a cidade que é hoje. Com uma pesquisa meticulosa e um conhecimento em primeira mão do local, Roma: Uma história em sete invasões é uma celebração da coragem feroz e da vitalidade do povo romano. Acima de tudo, é uma carta de amor apaixonada para essa cidade incomparável.

A warm and affectionate portrait of a city and a people under lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis, from the award-winning author of Rome: A History in Seven Sackings. On the first morning of Rome''s Covid-19 lockdown Matthew Kneale felt an urge to connect with friends and acquaintances and began writing an email, describing where he was, what was happening and what it felt like, and sent it to everyone he could think of. He was soon composing daily reports as he tried to comprehend a period of time, when everyone''s lives suddenly changed and Italy struggled against an epidemic, that was so strange, so troubling and so fascinating that he found it impossible to think about anything else. lived in Rome for eighteen years, Matthew has grown to know the capital and its citizens well and this collection of brilliant diary pieces connects what he has learned about the city with this extraordinary, anxious moment, revealing the Romans through the intense prism of the coronavirus crisis.

Daniel Thayne, a young Englishman, finds himself trapped in Tokyo. His passport lost, he is working illegally in a ramshackle language school, whose boss refuses to pay his salary. He is in a dead end relationship with Keiko, his cloying Japanese girlfriend, whose apartment is filled with stuffed toys. But his troubles are only beginning. As the hot, stormy weather of the rainy season descends, Keiko''s family appear on his doorstep, determined to pressure him into marriage with their daughter by any means. Owners of their own mysterious and threatening ''Company Business'' (or is it ''Business Company''?) they set about taking over his life. As Daniel resists, or tries to, he will learn a great deal about Japan - good and bad - and about his own culture.

La más completa y exhaustiva historia de la fe. ¿Qué llevó al hombre prehistórico, refugiado en la oscuridad de las cavernas, a apelar al reino de los espíritus? ¿Por qué calaron las creencias y creamos el cielo y el infierno, el pecado y la redención y, sobre todo, los dioses? La religión refleja nuestras más altas esperanzas y nuestros peores temores. Independientemente de que creamos en ella o que, al igual que Matthew Kneale, poseamos la perspectiva de un no creyente que admira la capacidad del hombre para crear e imaginar, no cabe duda de que ha dado forma al mundo en que vivimos. A medida que han cambiado nuestros sueños y pesadillas también lo han hecho nuestras creencias. De los chamanes a los sacerdotes aztecas, de los budistas a los cristianos, los dioses que creamos han evolucionado y mutado con nosotros. La fe ha sido la más épica labor de invención del hombre. Se ha convertido en nuestra más íntima compañera y ha seguido a la humanidad a lo largo de los continentes y a través de las épocas. Esta es su historia.

«Un capolavoro per ritmo e suspense.» «Sunday Times» Nessuna città sulla terra ha conservato il suo passato come Roma. Per citare solo alcune delle sue meraviglie, ci sono i templi classici, i resti delle grandi terme cittadine di Caracalla, di Diocleziano e di Traiano, le rovine del Palazzo di Domiziano sul Palatino, il Mausoleo di Augusto e la sua stupenda Ara Pacis. E poi ancora il Pantheon, Castel Sant’Angelo, la Cappella Sistina, e naturalmente San Pietro. Queste meraviglie architettoniche sono ancora più notevoli considerando i numerosi disastri che hanno colpito la città: flagellata da terremoti, inondazioni e soprattutto ripetutamente devastata dagli eserciti stranieri – galli, visigoti, normanni, «liberatori» francesi e occupanti tedeschi. Matthew Kneale ha scelto di raccontare le storie dietro i sette più importanti assedi di Roma e di rivelare, con affascinanti intuizioni, come hanno trasformato la città. Ricostruzione felicemente misurata a metà tra appassionato diario di viaggio, divertita storia sociale e resoconto culturale, Storia di Roma in sette saccheggi è una celebrazione del feroce coraggio, brio e vitalità del popolo romano. Soprattutto, è una lettera d’amore appassionata per questa città unica al mondo.

In this novel about the differences between Western and Eastern cultures, a young Englishman finds himself trapped in Tokyo.

A Londres, en 1857, se prépare l''une des plus grandes aventures du siècle : mû par une révélation divine autant que par ses rêves de gloire, le révérend Wilson entend prouver au monde que le jardin d''Eden se trouve en Tasmanie, grande île située à l''extrémité sud de l''Australie. En compagnie d''un jeune botaniste désabusé et d''un médecin auteur en secret de sinistres traités sur la supériorité de la race blanche, le révérend embarque à bord du bateau du capitaine Kewley, davantage intéressé par la revente de sa cargaison de contrebande que par la quête mystique de ses passagers. Pendant ce temps, de l''autre côté du globe, Peevay l''aborigène raconte les luttes de son peuple contre les colons, ces " fantômes à la peau morte et aux pieds sans orteils ". Au terme d''un périlleux voyage, alors que les passagers anglais approchent de l''île de Peevay, le choc entre deux civilisations que tout oppose paraît inéluctable...

En 1849, Joshua Jeavons, un jeune ingénieur, étudie les cloaques de Londres et enquête sur la disparition de sa femme dans les bas-fonds de la ville. Au fur et à mesure il abandonne son travail et sa vie respectable et élit domicile dans une des ruelles du quartier mal famé des Seven Dials.

De l''Angleterre à l''Ethiopie, de la Colombie au Moyen-Orient, l''auteur des Passagers anglais nous entraîne dans un incroyable tour du monde, révélant au passage toute la cocasserie, l''absurdité et la noirceur de notre époque troublée. Un avocat londonien tombe sur un stock de cocaïne. Loin de l''embarrasser, cette découverte impromptue pourrait bien être son passeport pour la fortune et la gloire... Un homme d''affaires britannique arrive dans une ville africaine en proie à des émeutes. Sa vie bascule. Enfin, pas au point de lui faire oublier ce pour quoi il était venu... La ceinture bardée d''explosifs, l''esprit déjà tourné vers ce paradis qu''on promet aux martyrs, un jeune Palestinien s''apprête à se faire sauter au milieu d''une foule. C''est alors qu''un doute le gagne... Douze tranches de vie, douze lieux, douze histoires, pour un étonnant voyage à travers la planète, théâtre de ces petits crimes nés de vertigineux contrastes culturels, et de ce bien-pensant douteux où ronronne notre ère prospère.

What first prompted prehistoric man, sheltering in the shadows of deep caves, to call upon the realm of the spirits? And why has belief thrived since, shaping millennia of civilizations, thousands of generations of shamans, pharaohs, Aztec priests and Mayan rulers, Jews, Buddhists, Christians and Scientologists?

In this dissertation I investigate the theory and practice of power in social movement organizations that use consensus decision-making, a form of deliberation that espouses radically democratic and anarchist political ideals. Over the past several decades consensus decision-making has grown popular in anarchist-inspired North American social movements. From the environmental direct action alliances of the 1970s to the recent Occupy Wall Street movements of 2011-2012, the consensus process has often been idolized as the most radically democratic and anarchist method of decision-making, considered as a way to remove or eradicate power from group deliberation. Contrary to this popular discourse, I will argue that we can think more usefully about consensus decision-making as a specific tool of power rather than a general ideal against power, but only if we understand power more carefully as an essentially neutral concept of collective interaction which can never be removed from any human social relations. In todays North American anarchist and radical democratic discourses the meaning of power is commonly divided into three separate concepts: power-to, power-over, and power-with. These three concepts are treated as distinct and opposed phenomena, based on a dichotomous theoretical opposition between the freedom of individual agency and the constraint of social structure. My contention is that power-to, power-over, and power-with should actually be understood as interrelated concepts concerning the dynamics of human collective action systems. Thinking of power as a concept that describes the dynamics of collective action systems, I ask a double question: What can the theory of power teach us about consensus decision-making? And, how can we study consensus decision-making as a way to elucidate the theory of power? Addressing how this double question can help to build a more careful analysis of power in consensus decision-making, I aim ultimately to contribute to the social theory of power as well as to the praxis of anarchist and radical democratic organization.

Matthew Kneale (n.1960) es autor de una prestigiosa y aclamada obra compuesta por Inside Rose Kingdom, Sweet Thames, por la que obtuvo el Premio John Llewellyn en 1992, Whore Bankets, que le valió el Premio Somerset Maughan de 1997 y Viajeros ingleses que, después de ser finalista del Premio Booker, obtuvo el Whitbread a la mejor novela del año en lengua inglesa.

Engelse passagiers. - Rond 1850 onderneemt een dominee een expeditie naar Tasmanië waar hij de Tuin van Eden denkt te vinden.