Jonathan Raban Livres

In 1874, Stevenson left Edinburgh for San Francisco to join his fiancee. A shrewd and sympathetic observer, he produced the best account ever written of the passage to the New World.

Jonathan Raban's echnating history of the Great Plains of America, charting the untold story of the land and the ravages of the Great Depression.

This memoir delves into themes of family, memory, and the inevitability of mortality, offering a poignant reflection on the author's life experiences. As Jonathan Raban's final work, it combines personal narrative with profound insights, inviting readers to explore the complexities of human connections and the passage of time. Through his unique perspective, Raban crafts a compelling story that resonates deeply with the universal journey of understanding one's roots and facing life's ultimate questions.

Sharp...funy...a marvellous attempt to discover the meaning of home' Ian Jack, Observer

An entrancing chronicle of the voyage from Seattle to the Alaskan capital from the late Anglo-American master of letters, Jonathan Raban.

Teems with acerbic humour . . . 600 relentlessly intelligent pages of erudite, witty and combative prose.' Patrick McGrath, Guardian Book of the Week'

‘A wonderful, rushing, crowded, enlightening voyage . . . A book which, in its ingenious understanding, its acceptance of a very imperfect world, and its energetic and constant fascination with human variety, should do a great deal to dispel the easiest and therefore the most prolific paranoid deception which the Western imagination has now fabricated in its desperate attempt to avoid facing reality’ Angus Wilson, Observer ‘A gem of a book, full of events and people and philosophy’ Sunday Telegraph ‘With an eye for the striking scene and entertaining incident he combines a perceptiveness of deeper realities that makes Arabia more than an amusing travellers’ journal’ Daily Telegraph ‘A very enjoyable book . . . It is racy and entertaining travel writing’ Cosmopolitan ‘The advent of a new travel writer of the first rank is an occasion to celebrate. Such a discovery is Jonathan Raban, whose Arabia is a tour de force’ Yorkshire Post

"A tour de force" (Jan Morris) from the winner of the national book critics circle award. Jonathan Raban's vivid, often funny portrait of metropolitan life is part reportage, part incisive thesis, part intimate autobiography, and a much-quoted classic of the literature of the city. In an age when the big city has fewer friends than ever, this is a passionate and imaginative defense of city life, its "unique plasticity, its privacy and freedom." Soft City, first published in 1974, records one man's attempt to plot a course through the urban labyrinth. Holding up a revealing mirror to the modern city, Raban finds it a stage for a demanding and expressive kind of personal drama. Readers of Arabia (1979), Old Glory (1982), Hunting Mister Heartbreak (1990), and, more recently, Badlands (1997) will be delighted to discover this early work by one of the most inventive and enjoyable writers of our time.

An extraordinary memoir about family, the past and mortality, and the final work from the peerless Jonathan Raban.

For over 30 years, George Grey has been a ship bunker in the west African nation of Montedor, a land of malaria and political upheaval. But now he's returning to England, to a life and world essentially foreign, and to the terra incognita of retirement.

From the bestselling novelist, travel writer, and "master of the short story" (NPR) comes a brilliant new collection. The stories in The Vanishing Point are both exotic and domestic, their settings ranging from Hawaii to Africa and New England. Each focuses on life's vanishing points--a moment when seemingly all lines running through one's life converge, and one can see no farther, yet must deal with the implications. With the insight, subtlety, and empathy that has long characterized his work, Theroux has written deeply moving stories about memory, longing, and the passing of time, reclaiming his status, once again, as a master of the form. 'The most gifted, most prodigal writer of his generation' Jonathan Raban 'The most exciting contemporary practitioner of a literary tradition honed to elegantly crafted terseness by Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. A terrific teller of tales and conjurer of exotic locales' Sunday Times

Jonathan Raban’s powerful novel is set in Seattle in 1999, at the height of its infatuation with the virtual. It’s a place that attracts immigrants. One of these is Tom Janeway, a bookish Hungarian-born Englishman who makes his living commenting on American mores on NPR. Another, who calls himself Chick, is a frenetically industrious illegal alien from China who makes his living any way he can. Through a series of extraordinary but chillingly plausible events, the paths of these newcomers converge. Tom is uprooted from his marriage and must learn to father his endearing eight-year old son part-time. Chick claws his way up from exploited to exploiter. Meanwhile Seattle is troubled by rioting anarchists, vanishing children, and the discovery of an al-Qaeda operative; it is a city on the brink. Savage and tender, visionary and addictively entertaining, Waxwings is a major achievement. From the Trade Paperback edition.

In a near-future America, national identity cards are mandatory, and the government is fixated on intelligence-gathering. Surveillance is pervasive, with civilians indulging their curiosity online, journalists pursuing stories with tenacity, and children both spying on their parents and mastering new technologies. In Seattle, unfulfilled actor Tad Zachary primarily performs in fictional disaster scenarios for the Department of Homeland Security, while his neighbor, freelance journalist Lucy Bengstrom, struggles to support her eleven-year-old daughter, Alida, amid financial pressures and threats from their landlord. Lucy's assignment to profile August Vanags, a retired professor and best-selling author recounting his war-torn childhood, raises questions about the authenticity of his memoir, even as Lucy and Alida find themselves charmed by him and his lonely wife. In this world, everyone is either under surveillance or spying on others, blurring the lines between truth and fiction in a climate of personal stress and societal panic, where the specters of terrorist attacks and literary deceit loom large. With precision and compassion, the narrative explores a complex period in history, revealing a diverse array of lives entangled in the societal fault lines of the time.

Jonathan Raban legt mit seiner Elf-Meter-Ketsch in Seattle ab und segelt tausend Meilen die Pazifikküste Kanadas hinauf. Endpunkt der Reise ist Juneau, die Hauptstadt Alaskas. Seine Reiseroute führt ihn entlang alter Wasserwege der Indianer durch die 'Inside Passage', ein Labyrinth aus Sunden und Kanälen. Für den Reisenden wird der Törn zu einem äußeren wie inneren Abenteuer, zu einer unentrinnbaren Konfrontation mit der Wildnis der See und sich selbst. 'Raban vermag mit wenigen Worten Bilder zu zeichnen, die an den dunklen Ton mancher Kanalufer erinnern, wo die Wurzeln und Steine, die niedrige Böschung und ihr flüssiges Ebenbild zu verschmelzen scheinen.' Süddeutsche Zeitung

Verslag van een bootreis langs de Mississippi.