Since his globe-trotting debut, Ghostwritten, author David Mitchell has been a trailblazer of genre-bending fiction, pushing the boundaries of contemporary literature with kaleidoscopic, time-twisting tales. Born in England in 1969, he attended the University of Kent and spent 8 years teaching English in Hiroshima, before turning to novel-writing in the late ’90s.
Following the buzz around his debut, Mitchell made the Man Booker Prize shortlist with his next two novels: number9dream, an unconventional coming-of-age journey through Tokyo’s dark underworlds, and Cloud Atlas, a disparate, post-apocalyptic tour de force adapted into film form by the Wachowskis.
Along with The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, The Bone Clocks, and Utopia Avenue, Mitchell has crafted a heavily “hyperlinked” universe of his own. Cross-references and recurring characters abound, with lives that intersect through time, space and story. While each work stands alone, they can also be read as interconnected parts of a greater whole – a monumental meta-novel Mitchell has been writing towards his whole career.
David Mitchell’s Reading List
One Man’s Justice by Akira Yoshimura
“A morally probing novel about a Japanese officer, Kiyohara Takuya, who is delegated to execute a captured American airman near the end of the war in the Pacific. Whatever one’s nationality, the reader’s sympathies gravitate toward Officer Takuya during his own attempts to evade capture—and execution—during the Allied occupation. Thoughtful about war and compassionate about guilt, this book is a light-shedder.” -DM
A Tomb for Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kis
“A septet of tales, mostly set in Eastern Europe and all built around betrayal, hypocrisy, and corruption. Kis’ prose is bitter coffee, flawlessly prepared and served.” -DM
Miracle Fair by Wislawa Szymborska
“The poetry of Szymborska, a Polish Nobel laureate, is droll, conversational, intimate, and life-affirming in a vinegary sort of way. Who cares if poetry is impossible to translate, when the results are this lucid, this memorable? Two or three to be taken every night, before sleep.” -DM
The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Laxness
“An Arctic-lit thing of beauty about a houseful of misfits living outside Reykjavik, Iceland. Such is home to Álfgrímur, a boy who strikes up a sporadic but formative relationship with Iceland’s celebrated ‘world singer’ Garoar Hólm. Hólm has a secret hanging around his neck, and Álfgrímur ultimately has a role in his redemption.” -DM
Under the Skin by Michel Faber
“Faber may be best known for his postmodern Victorian glory, The Crimson Petal and the White, but his debut novel tattoos the memory with an unholy trinity of hitchhikers, the Scottish Highlands, and the extraterrestrial meat-packing industry. Wonderful, grisly, and beyond bonkers.” -DM
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
“Last up, a book of nonfiction—in which the author projects what would (or will) happen to the world if (or when) the species Homo sapiens permanently disappears. The fruits of this many-headed inquiry are fascinating and curiously comforting.” -DM
(via The Week; photo by Ulf Andersen)
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