{"title":"Books by Olga Tokarczuk","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781910695593","title":"The Books of Jacob","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the mid-eighteenth century, as new ideas begin to sweep the continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following. In the decade to come, Frank will traverse the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires, throngs of disciples in his thrall as he reinvents himself again and again, converts to Islam and then Catholicism, is pilloried as a heretic and revered as the Messiah, and wreaks havoc on the conventional order, Jewish and Christian alike, with scandalous rumours of his sect’s secret rituals and the spread of his increasingly iconoclastic beliefs. In \u003cem\u003eThe Books of Jacob\u003c\/em\u003e, her masterpiece, 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Olga Tokarczuk writes the story of Frank through the perspectives of his contemporaries, capturing Enlightenment Europe on the cusp of precipitous change, searching for certainty and longing for transcendence.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205794627762,"sku":"9781910695593","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781910695593.jpg?v=1789395772"},{"product_id":"9781913097257","title":"Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith \u003cem\u003eDrive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead\u003c\/em\u003e, Man Booker International Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk returns with a subversive, entertaining noir novel. In a remote Polish village, Janina Duszejko, an eccentric woman in her sixties, recounts the events surrounding the disappearance of her two dogs. She is reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people; she’s unconventional, believing in the stars; and she is fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken. When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, Duszejko becomes involved in the investigation. By no means a conventional crime story, this existential thriller by ‘one of Europe’s major humanist writers’ (\u003cem\u003eGuardian\u003c\/em\u003e) offers thought-provoking ideas on our perceptions of madness, injustice against marginalized people, animal rights, the hypocrisy of traditional religion, belief in predestination – and caused a genuine political uproar in Tokarczuk’s native Poland.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205852954802,"sku":"9781913097257","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781913097257_1f918ffb-3fcb-4959-b9ac-95394c2636bb.jpg?v=1786030880"},{"product_id":"9781910695821","title":"Flights","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFlights\u003c\/em\u003e, a novel about travel in the twenty-first century and human anatomy, is Olga Tokarczuk’s most ambitious to date. It interweaves travel narratives and reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. From the seventeenth century, we have the story of the Dutch anatomist Philip Verheyen, who dissected and drew pictures of his own amputated leg. From the eighteenth century, we have the story of a North African-born slave turned Austrian courtier stuffed and put on display after his death. In the nineteenth century, we follow Chopin’s heart as it makes the covert journey from Paris to Warsaw. In the present we have the trials of a wife accompanying her much older husband as he teaches a course on a cruise ship in the Greek islands, and the harrowing story of a young husband whose wife and child mysteriously vanish on a holiday on a Croatian island. With her signature grace and insight, Olga Tokarczuk guides the reader beyond the surface layer of modernity and towards the core of the very nature of humankind.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205882446002,"sku":"9781910695821","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781910695821_cb7b8c3b-683c-4ef6-8a4f-477271d8733a.jpg?v=1786028980"},{"product_id":"the-empusium-a-health-resort-horror-story-by-olga-tokarczuk","title":"The Empusium","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn September 1913, a young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day: monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women born inferior? War or peace? Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening in the guesthouse and the surrounding hills. Someone – or something – seems to be watching, attempting to infiltrate this cloistered world. Little does the newcomer realize, as he tries to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target. A century after the publication of \u003cem\u003eThe Magic Mountain\u003c\/em\u003e, Olga Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53594306019701,"sku":"9781804271087","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781804271087_d80496ce-c6a1-4fa6-8f6f-4e9aa2f0f8ad.jpg?v=1786026629"},{"product_id":"9781644214473","title":"Mr. Distinctive","description":"\u003cb\u003eA gorgeously illustrated picture book for adults—with two gatefold pages inside—by Nobelist Olga Tokarczuk and illustrator Joanna Concejo, creators of \u003ci\u003eThe Lost Soul\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA devastating putdown of our self-obsessed, superficial social media culture.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr. Distinctive has a memorable, attractive face. He only has to walk down the street, and everyone turns to smile at him. Once he starred in a TV commercial and was praised and congratulated for having a face that sold the product well. Mr. Distinctive is very pleased with himself and loves to take selfies with his cellphone. He posts countless images of himself that are shared all over the internet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne day Mr. Distinctive looks in the mirror and sees that his features have begun to fade, his face has changed into a blur. With every new photo he posts, his distinctiveness dwindles. Determined to regain his flawlessly beautiful face and the adoration it brought him, Mr. Distinctive seeks out an extreme solution. But are the lengths he goes in order to restore his sense of being unique and exceptional worth it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn their new story, the creators of \u003ci\u003eThe Lost Soul\u003c\/i\u003e—Nobel prize in literature winner Olga Tokarczuk and illustrator Joanna Concejo—show us a world of obsession with personal appearance and self-promotion, where happiness is an imperative, and the cult of youth rules.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55205936890229,"sku":"9781644214473","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781644214473.jpg?v=1786024319"},{"product_id":"9781804271919","title":"House of Day, House of Night","description":"\u003cp\u003eA woman settles in a remote Polish village. It has few inhabitants, but it teems with the stories of its living and its dead. There’s the drunk Marek Marek, who discovers that he shares his body with a bird, and Franz Frost, whose nightmares come to him from a newly discovered planet. There’s the man whose death – with one leg on the Polish side, one on the Czech – was an international incident. And there are the Germans who still haunt a region that not long ago they called their own. From the founding of the town to the lives of its saints, these shards piece together not only a history but a cosmology. Another brilliant ‘constellation novel’ in the mode of her International Booker Prize-winning \u003cem\u003eFlights\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eHouse of Day, House of Night \u003c\/em\u003eis a brilliantly imaginative epic novel of a small place by Olga Tokarczuk, one of the most daring and ambitious novelists of our time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55897608192373,"sku":"9781804271919","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781804271919_85d10416-df7b-4ad7-8c51-53ac0e4c5de8.jpg?v=1786026666"},{"product_id":"primeval-and-other-times","title":"Primeval and Other Times","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor the denizens of mythical Primeval, its fields and forests bounded by two rivers, the world beyond is nothing more than a dream. Yet their stories – or Times – are a microcosm of the tumultuous recent history of the world. The fortunes of the family of Michal the miller, whom conscription carries away in 1914, punctuate nearly a century of war and occupation. The outcast Cornspike raises her daughter among the creatures and spirits of the forest. The squire Popielski loses his faith and becomes obsessed with a game where progress is attained only by dreaming the right kind of dream. Non-human beings – trees and mushrooms and archangels – have their Times too, as do inanimate objects, which may be ‘more important for the world than people’. Alongside bloodshed and betrayal, the dramas of Primeval’s daily life mark the birth, life and decline of its little world and Time, making us consider afresh the stories that help us comprehend and navigate our own. Rich with the capaciousness and innovation that have brought Olga Tokarczuk to sustained international fame,\u003cem\u003e Primeval and Other Times\u003c\/em\u003e is an enduring masterpiece by one of Europe’s most inventive novelists.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57507927327093,"sku":"9781804272596","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781804272596.jpg?v=1787043090"},{"product_id":"the-books-of-jacob","title":"The Books of Jacob","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the mid-eighteenth century, as new ideas begin to sweep the continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following. In the decade to come, Frank will traverse the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires, throngs of disciples in his thrall as he reinvents himself again and again, converts to Islam and then Catholicism, is pilloried as a heretic and revered as the Messiah, and wreaks havoc on the conventional order, Jewish and Christian alike, with scandalous rumours of his sect’s secret rituals and the spread of his increasingly iconoclastic beliefs. 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