{"title":"Books by E. L. Doctorow","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780141188171","title":"Ragtime","description":"\u003cp\u003eSet in turn-of-the-century New York, E.L. Doctorow's \u003ci\u003eRagtime\u003c\/i\u003e seamlessly blends fictional characters and realistic depictions of historical figures to bring to life the events that defined American history in the years before the First World War. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Al Alvarez.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWelcome to America at the turn of the twentieth century, where the rhythms of ragtime set the beat. Harry Houdini astonishes audiences with magical feats of escape, the mighty J. P. Morgan dominates the financial world and Henry Ford manufactures cars by making men into machines. Emma Goldman preaches free love and feminism, while ex-chorus girl Evelyn Nesbitt inspires a mad millionaire to murder the architect Stanford White. In this stunningly original chronicle of an age, such real-life characters intermingle with three remarkable families, one black, one Jewish and one prosperous WASP, to create a dazzling literary mosaic that brings to life an era of dire poverty, fabulous wealth, and incredible change - in short, the era of ragtime.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eE.L. Doctorow (b.1931) is one of America's most accomplished and acclaimed living writers. Winner of the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award (twice), the PEN\/Faulkner Award, and the National Humanities Medal, he is the author of nine novels that have explored the drama of American life from the late 19th century to the 21st, including \u003ci\u003eRagtime\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Daniel\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBilly Bathgate\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you enjoyed \u003ci\u003eRagtime\u003c\/i\u003e, you might like John Dos Passos' \u003ci\u003eU.S.A.\u003c\/i\u003e, also available in \u003ci\u003ePenguin Classics\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'In its perfection it stuns and holds from beginning to end'\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaily Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Witty, lyrical, put together with admirable craft ... dazzling economy and insight ... Mr Doctorow knows what he is doing and has done it beautifully'\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'One of the best American novels for years'\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eEconomist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56224392905077,"sku":"9780141188171","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141188171_efcf896b-ea86-4c42-8cef-4ed2bac275d2.jpg?v=1786011501"},{"product_id":"9780241256428","title":"Billy Bathgate","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'I was living in even greater circles of gangsterdom than I had dreamed, latitudes and longitudes of gangsterdom'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's 1930's New York and fifteen-year-old streetkid Billy, who can juggle, somersault and run like the wind, has been taken under the wing of notorious gangster Dutch Schultz. As Billy learns the ways of the mob, he becomes like a son to Schultz - his 'good-luck kid' - and is initiated into a world of glamour, death and danger that will consume him, in this vivid, soaring epic of crime and betrayal.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56228007182709,"sku":"9780241256428","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241256428_95c1040a-a62b-468b-b4f3-8bcb3dcb9b25.jpg?v=1786012738"},{"product_id":"9780349122595","title":"Homer And Langley","description":"\u003cp\u003eBrilliant brothers Langley and Homer Collyer are born into bourgeois New York comfort, their home a mansion on upper Fifth Avenue, their future rosy. But before he is out of his teens Homer begins to lose his sight, Langley returns from the war with his lungs seared by gas, and when both of their parents die, they seem perilously ill-equipped to deal with the new era.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs romantic Homer and eccentric Langley construct a life on the fringes of society, they hold fast to their principle of self-reliance. But they are mocked and spied on, and despite wanting nothing more than to shut out the world, the epic events of the century flow through their housebound lives as they struggle to survive and create meaning for themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286206624117,"sku":"9780349122595","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349122595_2fafa46d-a3ef-4823-8c2c-8572ed5bc886.jpg?v=1786013977"},{"product_id":"9780349119595","title":"The March","description":"\u003cp\u003eDoctorow's new novel is set towards the end of the American Civil War and follows General Sherman's epic march with sixty thousand Union troops through Georgia and the Carolinas, one of the major manoeuvres to bring the war to its conclusion. THE MARCH ranges widely over a diverse set of characters - each of whom is brilliantly realised - so that we see the war through the eyes of both white-skinned Pearl (daughter of slave and slave owner) and General Sherman; a deserting confederate who sets himself up as a photographer; a ruthless army surgeon who enjoys his reputation as an amputator; and the two brothers of a brutal slave owner who find themselves in uniforms facing Sherman's forces. \u003cbr\u003eDoctorow's narrative brilliantly blends the intimate and the epic, sweeping the reader along the route of Sherman's notorious march and making us care deeply about each individual's fate.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286896783733,"sku":"9780349119595","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349119595_2f5cdd7e-2e1c-4e93-84e2-cd0256da41ce.jpg?v=1786013900"},{"product_id":"9780141188188","title":"The Book of Daniel","description":"\u003cp\u003eBased on the trial and execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, convicted of delivering information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union E.L. Doctorow's \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Daniel \u003c\/i\u003eincludes a new introduction by Jonathan Freedland in Penguin Modern Classics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Cold War hysteria inflames America, FBI agents pay a surprise visit to a Communist man and his wife in their New York apartment. After a trial that divides the country, the couple are sent to the electric chair for treason. Decades later, in 1967, their son Daniel struggles to understand the tragedy of their lives. But while he is tormented by his past and trying to appreciate his own wife and son, Daniel is also haunted, like millions of others, by the need to come to terms with a country destroying itself in the Vietnam War. A stunning fictionalization of a political drama that tore the United States apart, \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Daniel\u003c\/i\u003e is an intensely moving tale of political martyrdom and the search for meaning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eE.L. Doctorow (b.1931) is one of America's most accomplished and acclaimed living writers. Winner of the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award (twice), the PEN\/Faulkner Award, and the National Humanities Medal, he is the author of nine novels that have explored the drama of American life from the late 19th century to the 21st, including \u003ci\u003eRagtime\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Daniel\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBilly Bathgate\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you enjoyed \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Daniel\u003c\/i\u003e, you might like Ralph Ellison's \u003ci\u003eInvisible Man\u003c\/i\u003e, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Art on this level can be only a cause for rejoicing'\u003cbr\u003eJoyce Carol Oates\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'[Doctorow] is at once a radical historian, a cultural anthropologist, a troubadour, a private eye, and a cost-benefit analyst of assimilation and upward mobility in the great American multiculture'\u003cbr\u003eJohn Leonard, \u003ci\u003eNew York\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311569613173,"sku":"9780141188188","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141188188_749138ae-932a-45f6-aec4-5dd3b2850135.jpg?v=1786011502"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-e-l-doctorow.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}