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Piranesi (Paperback)
$68.25
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Staff Reviews
If you are looking for something delightfully different, enter the intriguing and mysterious world of Piranesi. Piranesi's journal does not mark the years by numbers, but rather by happenings—and it takes place in The Year the Albatross Came to the South-Western Halls. Piranesi delights in exploring and documenting every detail of The House he lives in, a labyrinth of seemingly endless vestibules and halls, with a lower level that is periodically flooded by torrential tides. Every room is filled with unique statues, and he is determined to travel and discover them all. His child-like inquisitiveness and love for The House make him an endearing protagonist. He is intelligent too. Twice a week, Piranesi meets with The Other human in The House, and shares his knowledge. The strange thing is that The Other seems to experience The House differently, and The Other knows things that make Piranesi uneasy. Soon, his happiness is threatened as he must face the terrifying truth that The House—and his existence within it— is not what it seems.
— SharonSeptember 2020 Indie Next List
“It was more than 15 years ago that Susanna Clarke built a wing on the edifice of fantasy fiction unlike any seen before in the form of a debut novel called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. After so long, I’d be grateful for any new work from her, but I’m unspeakably glad that she’s again constructed something entirely new. Piranesi has a smaller footprint than her previous novel, but makes more efficient use of space, cramming an entire unsettling universe into a book far bigger on the inside than it is out.”
— James Crossley, Madison Books, Seattle, WA
Winter 2022 Reading Group Indie Next List
“This beguiling story proves that a slim novel can be epic in scope, and that complex is not the same as abtruse. The mystery surrounding Piranesi and the House he lives in immediately draws one in. An engaging and thought-provoking novel.”
— Keith Glaeske, East City Bookshop, Washington, DC