Hardback / bound
|
English
€22.50
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Description
A book is shot through with a romantic, even mystical radicalism of the kind that William Blake would have approved of.
A book is shot through with a romantic, even mystical radicalism of the kind that William Blake would have approved of.
The same visceral, iconoclastic thrill I got from Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem ... A study in male friendship and British identity, and a warm, rollicking, heart-expanding read. You’ll never forget the time you spend in the company of Calvert and Redbone
Brilliantly constructed and steeped in rural atmosphere
A spirited and anarchic novel ... A roiling, rollicking crop-circle folk tale
A joy
The most beautiful book about friendship, about nature ... I think it will appeal to everybody
The understated, plangent loveliness of Myers’s storytelling is reminiscent of Mackenzie Crook’s brilliant TV series Detectorists. Here is a strong, spiritual writer who sees and loves every dewdrop, old oak, soft little animal and buried sword, and offers them up to us like the precious treasures they are. The Perfect Golden Circle deserves top ranking in any list of the best books about rural England
In this folksy, magnetic tale, two outsiders seek healing and enlightenment by creating crop formations in a Wiltshire field ... combining lyricism with comedy and themes that range from warfare and environmental calamity to hope and healing ... A memorable hymn to beauty
Clever, angry, poignant and beautifully constructed ... A work of love, and a work about works of love, and a work that evokes a sense of love in the reader
The beauty of Myers’ language alone is reward enough to read this superb novel, but The Perfect Golden Circle offers so much more: an all-too-rare literary depiction of rural England, the depths of the two central characters, the class and ecological concerns; but most of all the human need for what the Welsh poet Bobi Jones called "the boundless mystery that comforts being." A truly remarkable novel
Tender and magical
I’ve been loving reading aloud The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers to my mother. It’s a delightfully descriptive book, telling the story of two men in the south of England who create crop circles in the dead of night. Myers interweaves modernity and myth, UFOs and ancient rites. At the heart of the book is the main character’s mantra. “Fuel the myth, strive for beauty”
Full of mythology, wonder and oddity, Myers’ typical lyricism moves seamlessly from the mundane to the magical… Those who feel the English countryside deep within their bones will be enchanted by this folk gem from one of the nation’s most illuminating writers
The Perfect Golden Circle is a triumph of a book, showcasing a writer at his very best. There is a huge heart beating in this magical story. A heartfelt story that is transformative and transportive ... Moving and exhilarating, tender and slyly witty, The Perfect Golden Circle is a captivating novel about the futility of war, the destruction of the English countryside, class inequality – and the power of beauty to heal trauma and fight power
Consummate plotting and tenderness
Wonderfully subtle and understated... Benjamin Myers manages to write novels of increasing importance, asking what happened in previous decades to get us to this point in English history, where the seriousness of his purpose is matched by how entertaining and engrossing they are
An odd and winsome pleasure: a novel of friendship, collaboration, and environmental guerrilla art
Not only is it a total delight to tiptoe behind them as they languidly fuel the myth and strive for beauty, but as an experiment in proving one’s existence by leaving a close-to-invisible footprint that still resonates across the countryside, history and beyond, it’s a work of genius in several dimensions
No one writes about the atmosphere, beauty and brutality of the English countryside better than Ben Myers. And it's hard to think of many people who can write with with such attentiveness, tenderness and force about the importance of human connection and the redemptive power of art. Quite simply, this is a magnificent book
A strange, magical extraordinary book. It's so atmospheric, so strange and affecting. I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it before, and I'm not sure how Myers has made it work, but he has - I was totally gripped by this
Benjamin Myers is a writer of extraordinary and incandescent talent. Like J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country, this is a book about beauty and warfare, about how to heal a wrecked heart. I loved it
I felt that The Offing was a beautiful counter to the boundaries of age, class, gender and nationality, and Ben pulls it off again here, this time writing a tender exploration of how men deal with trauma as he evokes a long hot summer in which two ordinary men unconsciously deal with their demons by creating magic in sun-kissed Wiltshire fields. I often find the best stories are those most simply told as here in this invocation of the ancient human need to create, away from the shackles of art education and academic theory
Benjamin Myers is fast making the contested boundary between history and folklore his own. The ballad of Redbone and Calvert somehow combines the ease and warmth of The Offing with the sinew and menace of The Gallows Pole
The Perfect Golden Circle staggers the reader with its wit and beauty and the power of its charged poetry. Myers offers both a soulful portrait of a friendship between two damaged, resilient men and a series of striking glimpses into war, mythology, politics, history, the natural world and art. Like the creations of its protagonists, the impressions this novel leaves are majestic, mysterious and lasting
Benjamin Myers is one of my favorite British novelists working today. The Perfect Golden Circle is brilliant and breathtaking. It’s a novel about the quest for beauty and mystery in a world that’s falling apart around us
An investigation of trauma, class, healing and male friendship
A number of titans and titans-in-the-making are looking backwards, from Anne Tyler… to Benjamin Myers in The Perfect Golden Circle
An exhilarating, outdoor song of hope and vision, The Perfect Golden Circle taps into something charged, ancient and elemental in England and its people
Praise for The Offing: ‘What a radical thing, these days, to have written a book so full of warmth and kindness ... Gorgeous
This quiet, lyrical novel confirms a powerful new voice
It’s a poignant story, and Myers’ descriptions of the countryside are wonderful
One of the most interesting, restless writers of his generation … Unfurling at the unhurried pace of a fern, it’s an evocatively lyrical paean to the countryside – deeply felt and closely observed
A draft of cool, clear water, it feels like a cleansing book ... He’s such a good and brave writer … there’s a lot of heart in this book ... I was comparing it to some Ted Hughes poetry and it’s so much more hopeful than that … there’s light in this landscape ... A very original writer and has pushed the form in all kinds of ways
Every page is studded with descriptive jewels … Deeply attuned to the natural world … Poetic … This book is a sensual pleasure … It’s about the forever things: good food, and art, and friendship, and how those pleasures can redeem us, even during the harshest of times
Quietly gripping … Written with Myers’s customary grit and brio … A welcome advance, one that sees Myers effortlessly extending his range
The ever-versatile Myers channels the gently uplifting dynamics of The Offing for this richly atmospheric account of male friendship, the fragility of the countryside and the archaic allure of crop circles
Benjamin Myers was born in Durham in 1976. His most recent novel, The Offing, was an international bestseller and selected for the Radio 2 Book Club. Other works include The Gallows Pole, which won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction, Beastings which was awarded the Portico Prize for Literature, and Pig Iron which won the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize. He has also published non-fiction, poetry and crime novels and his journalism has appeared in publications including the Guardian, New Statesman, Spectator, Caught By The River and many more. He lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. benmyers.com / @BenMyers1
A book is shot through with a romantic, even mystical radicalism of the kind that William Blake would have approved of.
The same visceral, iconoclastic thrill I got from Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem ... A study in male friendship and British identity, and a warm, rollicking, heart-expanding read. You’ll never forget the time you spend in the company of Calvert and Redbone
Brilliantly constructed and steeped in rural atmosphere
A spirited and anarchic novel ... A roiling, rollicking crop-circle folk tale
A joy
The most beautiful book about friendship, about nature ... I think it will appeal to everybody
The understated, plangent loveliness of Myers’s storytelling is reminiscent of Mackenzie Crook’s brilliant TV series Detectorists. Here is a strong, spiritual writer who sees and loves every dewdrop, old oak, soft little animal and buried sword, and offers them up to us like the precious treasures they are. The Perfect Golden Circle deserves top ranking in any list of the best books about rural England
In this folksy, magnetic tale, two outsiders seek healing and enlightenment by creating crop formations in a Wiltshire field ... combining lyricism with comedy and themes that range from warfare and environmental calamity to hope and healing ... A memorable hymn to beauty
Clever, angry, poignant and beautifully constructed ... A work of love, and a work about works of love, and a work that evokes a sense of love in the reader
The beauty of Myers’ language alone is reward enough to read this superb novel, but The Perfect Golden Circle offers so much more: an all-too-rare literary depiction of rural England, the depths of the two central characters, the class and ecological concerns; but most of all the human need for what the Welsh poet Bobi Jones called "the boundless mystery that comforts being." A truly remarkable novel
Tender and magical
I’ve been loving reading aloud The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers to my mother. It’s a delightfully descriptive book, telling the story of two men in the south of England who create crop circles in the dead of night. Myers interweaves modernity and myth, UFOs and ancient rites. At the heart of the book is the main character’s mantra. “Fuel the myth, strive for beauty”
Full of mythology, wonder and oddity, Myers’ typical lyricism moves seamlessly from the mundane to the magical… Those who feel the English countryside deep within their bones will be enchanted by this folk gem from one of the nation’s most illuminating writers
The Perfect Golden Circle is a triumph of a book, showcasing a writer at his very best. There is a huge heart beating in this magical story. A heartfelt story that is transformative and transportive ... Moving and exhilarating, tender and slyly witty, The Perfect Golden Circle is a captivating novel about the futility of war, the destruction of the English countryside, class inequality – and the power of beauty to heal trauma and fight power
Consummate plotting and tenderness
Wonderfully subtle and understated... Benjamin Myers manages to write novels of increasing importance, asking what happened in previous decades to get us to this point in English history, where the seriousness of his purpose is matched by how entertaining and engrossing they are
An odd and winsome pleasure: a novel of friendship, collaboration, and environmental guerrilla art
Not only is it a total delight to tiptoe behind them as they languidly fuel the myth and strive for beauty, but as an experiment in proving one’s existence by leaving a close-to-invisible footprint that still resonates across the countryside, history and beyond, it’s a work of genius in several dimensions
No one writes about the atmosphere, beauty and brutality of the English countryside better than Ben Myers. And it's hard to think of many people who can write with with such attentiveness, tenderness and force about the importance of human connection and the redemptive power of art. Quite simply, this is a magnificent book
A strange, magical extraordinary book. It's so atmospheric, so strange and affecting. I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it before, and I'm not sure how Myers has made it work, but he has - I was totally gripped by this
Benjamin Myers is a writer of extraordinary and incandescent talent. Like J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country, this is a book about beauty and warfare, about how to heal a wrecked heart. I loved it
I felt that The Offing was a beautiful counter to the boundaries of age, class, gender and nationality, and Ben pulls it off again here, this time writing a tender exploration of how men deal with trauma as he evokes a long hot summer in which two ordinary men unconsciously deal with their demons by creating magic in sun-kissed Wiltshire fields. I often find the best stories are those most simply told as here in this invocation of the ancient human need to create, away from the shackles of art education and academic theory
Benjamin Myers is fast making the contested boundary between history and folklore his own. The ballad of Redbone and Calvert somehow combines the ease and warmth of The Offing with the sinew and menace of The Gallows Pole
The Perfect Golden Circle staggers the reader with its wit and beauty and the power of its charged poetry. Myers offers both a soulful portrait of a friendship between two damaged, resilient men and a series of striking glimpses into war, mythology, politics, history, the natural world and art. Like the creations of its protagonists, the impressions this novel leaves are majestic, mysterious and lasting
Benjamin Myers is one of my favorite British novelists working today. The Perfect Golden Circle is brilliant and breathtaking. It’s a novel about the quest for beauty and mystery in a world that’s falling apart around us
An investigation of trauma, class, healing and male friendship
A number of titans and titans-in-the-making are looking backwards, from Anne Tyler… to Benjamin Myers in The Perfect Golden Circle
An exhilarating, outdoor song of hope and vision, The Perfect Golden Circle taps into something charged, ancient and elemental in England and its people
Praise for The Offing: ‘What a radical thing, these days, to have written a book so full of warmth and kindness ... Gorgeous
This quiet, lyrical novel confirms a powerful new voice
It’s a poignant story, and Myers’ descriptions of the countryside are wonderful
One of the most interesting, restless writers of his generation … Unfurling at the unhurried pace of a fern, it’s an evocatively lyrical paean to the countryside – deeply felt and closely observed
A draft of cool, clear water, it feels like a cleansing book ... He’s such a good and brave writer … there’s a lot of heart in this book ... I was comparing it to some Ted Hughes poetry and it’s so much more hopeful than that … there’s light in this landscape ... A very original writer and has pushed the form in all kinds of ways
Every page is studded with descriptive jewels … Deeply attuned to the natural world … Poetic … This book is a sensual pleasure … It’s about the forever things: good food, and art, and friendship, and how those pleasures can redeem us, even during the harshest of times
Quietly gripping … Written with Myers’s customary grit and brio … A welcome advance, one that sees Myers effortlessly extending his range
The ever-versatile Myers channels the gently uplifting dynamics of The Offing for this richly atmospheric account of male friendship, the fragility of the countryside and the archaic allure of crop circles
Benjamin Myers was born in Durham in 1976. His most recent novel, The Offing, was an international bestseller and selected for the Radio 2 Book Club. Other works include The Gallows Pole, which won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction, Beastings which was awarded the Portico Prize for Literature, and Pig Iron which won the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize. He has also published non-fiction, poetry and crime novels and his journalism has appeared in publications including the Guardian, New Statesman, Spectator, Caught By The River and many more. He lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. benmyers.com / @BenMyers1