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Radio 2 Book Club choice: The Bone Clocks


The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell will be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club on Monday 8 September.

The book was selected with the help of a panel made up of Reading Agency and library staff from across the UK.

The Bone Clocks

One drowsy summer’s day in 1984, teenage runaway Holly Sykes encounters a strange woman who offers a small kindness in exchange for ‘asylum’. Decades will pass before Holly understands exactly what sort of asylum the woman was seeking…

The Bone Clocks follows the twists and turns of Holly’s life, from a scarred adolescence in Gravesend to old age on Ireland’s Atlantic coast as Europe’s oil supply dries up – a life not so far out of the ordinary, yet punctuated by flashes of precognition, visits from people who emerge from thin air and brief lapses in the laws of reality. For Holly Sykes – daughter, sister, mother, guardian – is also an unwitting player in a murderous feud played out in the shadows and margins of our world, and may prove to be its decisive weapon.

About the author

David Mitchell was born in Southport in January, 1969. His first novel, Ghostwritten, won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best book by a writer under 35 and was also shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.

His second novel, number9dream, was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2003 he was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.

His third novel, Cloud Atlas, was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. He has since published Black Swan Green (longlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award) and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize).

David Mitchell now lives in Ireland with his wife and their two children.

Get involved

Tune in to Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on Monday 8 September to hear a live interview with David Mitchell talking about his book.

Have you read The Bone Clocks? You can share your thoughts on Twitter, or by posting a comment in the space below.

Want to find out more? The Radio 2 Book Club now has a dedicated Twitter feed, and you can also follow the author David Mitchell.

Find out more about the Radio 2 Book Club.

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