Bookseller Reviews
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An all-timer
Easily my favourite book of the year so far - one of those rare books that makes you want to memorise page numbers so you can go back and revisit sections ... READ MORE
Fascinating and vital.
Starting at what Questio 7 is,through to his Fathers time on the brutal treatment by his captors on the Death Railway in WW2 tk his own very near death exp... READ MORE
Staggering
A rare foray into non fiction for me, this biography is a staggering exploration of chance and humanity that slides into philosophical musings about the ve... READ MORE
A Trust Fall
Quite simply fantastic. This defied my expectations. I found myself at times putting it down just to stare into space in awe of a sentence I had just read.... READ MORE
Magnificent
As raw, powerful and winding as the river rapids that almost took Flanagan's life, this memoir is crammed full of ideas, allusions and stories that are at ... READ MORE
I was surprisingly hooked on this ...
I say surprisingly, because I tend to like my books linear, and this is anything but. To say I was engrossed and addicted to it is an understatement.
Trul... READ MORE
"And why do we do what we do to each other?"
I rarely read non-fiction, something I am trying to remedy. Flanagan’s book intrigued me, if only because I wanted to find out how H.G. Wells and Rebecca W... READ MORE
Incredibly well thought through
I wasn't sure what to expect of this book, but I certainly wasn't expecting to have my assumptions challenged to such an extent that I came away seeing th... READ MORE
Not like any book I've read before
The first thing to say about this book is that it's really beautifully written. I'd not read Flanagan before, but I now can't wait to read his fiction, if ... READ MORE
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North Richard Flanagan comes this virtuoso encomium to his native Tasmania and his family, taking in atomic physics and Hiroshima, all rendered in exquisite, masterly prose.
Hatchards Non-Fiction Book of the Month 2024
Synopsis
Who loves longer?
Beginning at a love hotel by Japan’s Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows.
By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West’s affair, through 1930s nuclear physics, to Flanagan’s father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this daisy chain of events reaches fission when a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river, not knowing if he is to live or to die.
Flanagan has created a love song to his island home and his parents and the terrible past that delivered him to that place. Through a hypnotic melding of dream, history, science and memory it shows how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves.
Publisher information
- Publisher: Vintage Publishing
- ISBN: 9781784745677
- Number of pages: 288
- Dimensions: 222 x 142 x 28 mm
- Weight: 395g
- Languages: English
Customer Reviews
View allThe Booker Winner's Best Book to Date
Richard Flanagan is the author of some eight novels: his debut “Death of a River Guide” is about a man facing death trapped by a rock in Tasmania’s Frankli... READ MORE
A test....
Intrigued and genuinely enthused to read....however I found it simply too hard to enjoy and on reflection feel like one has to persevere rather than want t... READ MORE
Amazing writing, addictive prose
HG Wells meets a young woman and begins a torrid affair that influences his later writing. A talented scientist realises that the power of the atom could ... READ MORE
Interesting Read
This is quite a hard book to review.
At times it was incredibly interesting, but sometimes I felt like it was disjointed as I read.
I was wondering where... READ MORE
His best yet
This was an impulse purchase from the very lovely Foyles, Chelmsford, where I happened to be last week whilst looking after my father-in -law, and followin... READ MORE
A complex historical fiction and memoir, a book to generate opinion and drive discussion
Opening this book, I was hooked, I loved the story and found myself racing through. The story is engaging, and incredibly clever. It was readable and evoca... READ MORE
Compellling
I am not sure how the facts, reflections, and histories contained in this book fit together. In theory they shouldn’t but this book works and is full of co... READ MORE
Impossible to categorise
I came to this after reading Flanagan's superb The Narrow Road To The Deep North and expected another superb novel. But it's so much more. It is part novel... READ MORE
won’t be for everyone
Question 7 is a book written and read by award-winning Australian author, Richard Flanagan, which he dubs a love-note to his parents and his island home. I... READ MORE
Lost me
I completely realise this is an amazing book. However, halfway through I started flicking through the pages. It didn’t hold me and my mind kept wandering.
Profoundly Touching
I really enjoyed this book, although given that its central themes are the dropping of the atomic bomb, the author's near death experience in a kayaking ac... READ MORE
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