Most Popular Books by Matthew Kneale

Narrated by over twenty distinct voices and full of dangerous humour, English Passengers combines wit, adventure and historical detail in a mesmerizing display of storytelling. When Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of smugglers have their contraband confiscated they are forced to put their ship, Sincerity, up for charter. The only takers are two Englishmen, the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, who believes that the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania, and Dr. Thomas Potter who is developing his sinister thesis concerning the races of man. Meanwhile an aboriginal in Tasmania, Peevay, recounts his people''s struggles against the invading British. As the English passengers haplessly approach his land, their bizarre notions ever more painfully at odds with reality, we know a mighty collision is looming.

“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).

From the acclaimed author of 26a, comes a dazzling new novel about the fight to achieve one’s dream, and an unsolved disappearance at the heart of a family. As a child Lucas assumed that all children who’d lost their parents lived on water. Now a restless young man, and still sharing the West London narrowboat with his sister Denise, he secretly investigates the contents of an old wardrobe, in which he finds relics from the Midnight Ballet, an influential black dance company of the 1960s founded by his Jamaican father, the charismatic Antoney Matheus. In his search to unravel the legacy of the Midnight Ballet, Lucas hears of hot-house rehearsals in an abandoned Notting Hill church, of artistic battles and personal betrayals, and a whirlwind European tour. Most importantly, Lucas learns about his parents’ passionate and tumultuous relationship and of the events that led to his father’s final disappearance. Vividly conjuring the world of 1950s Kingston, Jamaica, the Blues parties and early carnivals of Ladbroke Grove, the flower stalls and vinyl riflers of modern-day Portobello Road, and the famous leap and fall of Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, Diana Evans creates a haunting and visceral family mystery about absence and inheritance, the battle between love and creativity, and what drives a young man to take flight…

The year 1289. 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 is convinced 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 group of pilgrims that sets off on the tough and dangerous journey from England to Rome, where they hope all their troubles will be answered. Some in the party who have their own, secret reasons for going. Matthew Kneale is the author of English Passengers and Rome: A History in Seven Sackings. His new novel, Pilgrims, is a riveting, sweeping narrative that shows medieval society in a new light, as a highly rule-bound, legalistic world, though religious fervour and the threat of violence are never far below the surface. Told by multiple narrators, Pilgrims has much to say about Englishness, then and now.

London in the summer of 1849. With a deadly cholera epidemic threatening, young engineer Joshua Jeavons is convinced it is his mission to save the capital and reform its festering sewers. Meanwhile in his dometsic life he is troubled by the baffling coldness shown towards him by his beautiful bride, Isobella. As he struggles to win her round, he works feverishly on a revolutionary drainage plan. This is his dream, his dazzling vision of the future: a London free of effluent.

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.

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.

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.

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.