The Bone Clocks: A Novel

David Mitchell

Sep 2014 · Sold by Random House

About this ebook

The New York Times bestseller by the author of Cloud Atlas • Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize • Named One of the Top Ten Fiction Books of the Year by Time, Entertainment Weekly, and O: The Oprah Magazine • A New York Times Notable Book • An American Library Association Notable Book • Winner of the World Fantasy Award

“With The Bone Clocks, [David] Mitchell rises to meet and match the legacy of Cloud Atlas.”—Los Angeles Times

Following a terrible fight with her mother over her boyfriend, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her family and her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.

For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.

A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting on the war in Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.

Rich with character and realms of possibility, The Bone Clocks is a kaleidoscopic novel that begs to be taken apart and put back together by a writer The Washington Post calls “the novelist who’s been showing us the future of fiction.”

An elegant conjurer of interconnected tales, a genre-bending daredevil, and a master prose stylist, David Mitchell has become one of the leading literary voices of his generation. His hypnotic new novel, The Bone Clocks, crackles with invention and wit and sheer storytelling pleasure—it is fiction at its most spellbinding.

Named to more than 20 year-end best of lists, including
NPR • San Francisco Chronicle • The Atlantic • The Guardian • Slate • BuzzFeed

“One of the most entertaining and thrilling novels I’ve read in a long time.”—Meg Wolitzer, NPR

“[Mitchell] writes with a furious intensity and slapped-awake vitality, with a delight in language and all the rabbit holes of experience.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Intensely compelling . . . fantastically witty . . . offers up a rich selection of domestic realism, gothic fantasy and apocalyptic speculation.”—The Washington Post

“[A] time-traveling, culture-crossing, genre-bending marvel of a novel.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

“Great fun . . . a tour de force . . . [Mitchell] channels his narrators with vivid expertise.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Ratings and reviews

Another great read from one of my favorite authors. The connections between characters along different timelines keeps the story interesting and entertaining. I also enjoy the witty phrasings and sharp interactions between the characters that help to create a more memorable reading experience. I also enjoy the challenge it presents to your intellectual capability to keep abreast with the subtleties.

That was a really good book at first, then...I don't know. It just stopped being good. Long windedness may have contributed to that I suppose. I'm let down. Towards the end it read like children making things up as they play fought in their rooms. Each would just come up with some new power that seemed to perfectly fit the bad situation they were in. Leaving the reader to just kinda follow along like, "A giant shark flew through the window but she cast sharkrepel so it was okay." That kind of stuff...

A great book with characters and stories that keep you reading. I didn't love the ending because so much of the story is about Holly then it just ends with no resolve for her. It's an open ended story, no doubt. I also had a hard time because I think he went crazy with the thesaurus. Looking up every fifth word at times was frustrating. But overall, I did like the book.

About the author

David Mitchell is the award-winning and bestselling author of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Black Swan Green, Cloud Atlas, Number9Dream, and Ghostwritten. Twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mitchell was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time in 2007. With KA Yoshida, Mitchell translated from the Japanese the internationally bestselling memoir The Reason I Jump. He lives in Ireland with his wife and two children.