Friday, December 12, 2014

The Washington Post's ten best books of 2014

One title on the Washington Post's list of the ten best books of 2014:
Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf)

In this genre-blurring dystopian novel, set in the near future, the Georgia Flu becomes airborne the night an actor named Arthur Leander dies during his performance as King Lear. Within months, most of the world’s population has been wiped out. The story presents Arthur’s life in flashbacks and describes how the pandemic affects his friends and ex-wives after his death. Among the survivors is Kirsten, a former child actor with no memory of her first year after the flu. Now in her 20s, she performs Shakespeare with a makeshift family of musicians and actors. Their band is threatened when they accidentally wander into territory controlled by a messianic tyrant. A gorgeous retelling of “King Lear” unfolds through the story of Arthur’s life and Kirsten’s attempt to stay alive in this surprisingly beautiful tale of human relationships amid almost total devastation. — Nancy Hightower
Read about the other books on the list.

See--Six books that most influenced Emily St. John Mandel as a writer.

--Marshal Zeringue