{"title":"Ben Eastham","description":"\u003cp\u003eBen Eastham’s work invites readers into intricately crafted narratives that explore the depths of human experience. His fiction blends rich characterisation with vivid settings, offering stories that linger in the mind long after the final page.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eExpect novels that balance thoughtful introspection with compelling storytelling, often touching on themes of identity, change, and the subtle complexities of everyday life. Eastham’s writing is sure to appeal to those who appreciate literary fiction with emotional resonance.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-floating-world-by-ben-eastham-9781804272619","title":"The Floating World","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn a remote Aegean island, the billionaire Thanassis Morel is building the Floating World: a climate-controlled utopia beneath a vast geodesic dome, promising refuge for the ultra-wealthy from the chaos consuming the outside world. When a struggling journalist is hired to propagandize the spectacular exhibition that will inaugurate this new Eden, he jumps at the chance to work with a cult artist - the reclusive Finn Reith - and to restart a life that stopped with the death of his wife two years earlier. Yet beneath the dazzling surface of this collaboration between art and power, he comes to suspect, run deep currents of violence. As Morel's monumental folly prepares for its glittering unveiling, he finds it ever more difficult to distinguish the dream from the reality. Who is being excluded from this new paradise? On what buried traumas is it being constructed, and are they poised to return? And how can art protect us against the end of the world?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Floating World\u003c\/i\u003e is described as transporting in every sense of the word. It's a meditation on the brutal and beautiful nexus where art and money meet, an odyssey of grief and discovery, and a rallying cry against the people ruining the world from those trying to change it. It's a towering achievement. ― \u003cb\u003eDominic Amarena\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eI Want Everything\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'An immersing, crystalline debut novel that reaches out to a world in crisis; elegant, emotional, deeply serious and gloriously witty.'  \u003cb\u003eDeborah Levy\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAugust Blue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Startlingly imaginative, \u003ci\u003eThe Floating World\u003c\/i\u003e is at times like the work of a J. G. Ballard for the 2020s, at others like the reincarnation of Italo Calvino. Eastham is as deft with a finely observed comic riff as he is with a heart-stoppingly lovely description of a city, a gesture, a connection. In his hands, what could have been a satire of art-world hubris becomes something so attuned to the world - its wonder and its clear and present danger... I don't want to sound mawkish, but ultimately it's a novel about our boundless potential to connect, and what we should ultimately value.'  \u003cb\u003eLuke Kennard\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBlack Bag\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'The world - that is, the protagonist - floats through opaque settings of fateful money, violent strangers and ghostly love; a tender, guilty work of wish-fulfillment and the most valuable kind of first novel, documenting the author's struggle to reconcile right action with the egomaniac work of writing books.'  \u003cb\u003eNell Zink\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSister Europe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'An astute satire about the absurdities of the art world, a compelling mystery and an elegy, \u003ci\u003eThe Floating World\u003c\/i\u003e is unputdownable: frequently funny, often moving and always intriguing.' \u003cb\u003eJennifer Higgie\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Other Side\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'By turns witty and lyrical, \u003ci\u003eThe Floating World\u003c\/i\u003e is a compelling aftermath novel, in which the world is eventually forced into a shape that's monstrous enough to express a man's grief.'  \u003cb\u003eBarney Norris\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eUndercurrent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Channelling Adolfo Bioy Casares, Eastham carries a vision of art's complicity with power to its endgame. If Art Basel is now globalized, then so is Minneapolis. Looping civilization back to end where it began, in Athens, he proposes that the only counterforce to fascism is love.' ― \u003cb\u003eTom McCarthy\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Making of Incarnation\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67798185181420,"sku":"9781804272619","price":37.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781804272619-the-floating-world-1.jpg?v=1792472831"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/ben-eastham.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}