Ian McEwan

While on holiday, a young couple meets the son of the local gentry and his wife and are drawn by sexual obsession into a nightmare of violence

From the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement--a taut, brooding, and densely atmospheric collection of stories that are as horrifying as anything written by Clive Barker or Stephen King. Here is the collection that first brought Ian McEwan instant recognition as one of the most influential voices writing in England today. These riveting stories show us the ways in which murder can arise out of boredom, perversity can result from adolescent curiosity, and sheer evil might be the solution to unbearable loneliness. These tales disturb but are crafted with a lyricism and intensity that compel us to confront our secret kinship with the horrifying. Don't miss Ian McEwan's new novel, Lessons.

In this "irresistibly readable" (New York Review of Books) tour de force of psychological unease, the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement excavates the ruins of childhood and uncovers things that most adults have spent a lifetime forgetting--or denying. In the arid summer heat, four children--Jack, Julie, Sue and Tom--find themselves abruptly orphaned. All the routines of childhood are cast aside as the children adapt to a now parentless world. Alone in the house together, the children's lives twist into something unrecognizable as the outside begins to bear down on them. Don't miss Ian McEwan's new novel, Lessons.

Mary ja Colin kohtaavat lomamatkallaan Venetsian pikkukujilla salaperäisen Robertin. Mies kutsuu heidät kotiinsa ja esittelee vaimonsa Carolinen, mutta jo ensi vierailulla he aistivat avioparin käytöksessä jotain outoa ja pelottavaa. Hotelliin päästyään Mary ja Colin juhlivat sitä että pystyvät yhä herättämään intohimonsa henkiin. Mutta Robert ja Caroline eivät jätä rauhaan. Se, mikä ensin tuntui mielipuoliselta, muuttuu välttämättömäksi.

"Die Mehrzahl dieser Geschichten handelt von Jugendlichen und davon, wie sie von der Welt der Erwachsenen verdorben werden. Die Unschuld der Pubertät wird weniger verloren als zerschmettert ... Nichts für Zimperliche, aber dieser Stil hat eine lakonische Brillanz, die Bände - andeutet. Nichts wird ausgesprochen, alles wird angetippt."

The mesmerising new novel from Ian McEwan, the bestselling author of Atonement. The world is forever changing. But for so many of us, old wounds run deep. Lessons is an intimate yet universal story of love, regret and a restless search for answers. ’Lessons is deep and wide, ambitious and humble, wise and substantial... McEwan’s best novel in 20 years’ New Statesman’Superb... A wonderful author has delivered another mesmerising, memorable novel’ Independent’Lessons triumphantly achieves its primary aim of conveying the "commonplace and wondrous" intertwining of global history and everyday life’ Daily Telegraph While the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines’s life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Twenty-five years later, as the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster spreads across Europe, Roland’s wife mysteriously vanishes and he is forced to confront the reality of his rootless existence and look for answers in his family history. From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Covid pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace through every possible means -- literature, travel, friendship, drugs, politics, sex and love. His journey raises important questions. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape us and our memories? What role do chance and contingency play in our existence? And what can we learn from the traumas of the past?