The Stonehenge Letters - Softcover

Karlinsky, Harry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007464320 ISBN 13: 9780007464326

Publisher: The Friday Project, 2014

Synopsis

A remarkable new novel from the Wellcome Trust longlisted author.

While digging through the Nobel Archives in Stockholm, trying to figure out why his hero, Sigmund Freud, never received a Nobel Prize, a psychiatrist makes an unusual discovery.

Among the unsolicited self-nominations in the museum’s ‘Crackpot’ file there are six letters addressed to Mr Ragnar Sohlman, executor of Alfred Nobel’s will. Remarkably, all but one has been written by a Nobel laureate – including Rudyard Kipling, Ivan Pavlov, Teddy Roosevelt and Marie Curie. Each letter attempts to explain why and how Stonehenge was constructed. Diligent research eventually uncovers that Alfred Nobel, intrigued by a young woman's obsession with the mysterious landmark, added a secret codicil to his will:

A prize – reserved exclusively for Nobel laureates – was to be awarded to the person who can solve the mystery of Stonehenge.

Weaving together a wealth of primary documents – photos, letters, wills – The Stonehenge Letters is a wryly documented archive of a fascinating covert competition, complete with strange but illuminating submissions and a contentious prize-awarding process.

But is this fact or is this fiction?

About this title

Review:

‘A neat mix of fact and fiction, woven together with 20:20 hindsight.’ Times Literary Supplement

‘Completely engaging and delightful.’ The Toronto Star

‘The book seamlessly combines the real and the imagined.’ Publisher’s Weekly

‘This little novel is a delight from its first word to its last. In his previous novel, The Evolution of Inanimate Objects, Karlinsky proved himself one of literature's great ventriloquists. In The Stonehenge Letters, his embodiment of Pavlov, Kipling, Roosevelt, Curie, and Alfred Nobel himself is by turns thoughtful, whimsical, haunting, and laugh-out-loud funny. Reading this book was like skating over the smoothest ice; I was blissfully unaware of the transitions from history to fiction and back again.’ Annabel Lyon, author of The Sweet Girl

'The Stonehenge Letters is a fantastic book, and well done to the publisher for taking a chance on such a weird hybrid work.' Lit Reactor

About the Author:

Harry Karlinsky is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Friday Project
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0007464320
• ISBN 13: 9780007464326
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276