The story of a mother, her son, a locked room and the outside world
Jack is five and, like any little boy, excited at the prospect of presents and cake. He's looking forward to telling his friends it's his birthday, too. But although Jack is a normal child in many ways – loving, funny, bright, full of energy and questions – his upbringing is far from ordinary: Jack's entire life has been spent in a single room that measures just 12 feet by 12 feet; as far as he's concerned, Room is the entire world.
He shares this world with his mother, with Plant, and tiny Mouse (though Ma isn't a fan and throws a book at Mouse when she sees him). There's TV too, of course – and the cartoon characters he thinks of as his friends – but Jack knows that nothing else he sees on the screen is real. Old Nick, on the other hand, is all too real, but only visits at night – like a bat – when Jack is meant to be asleep and hidden safely in Wardrobe. And only Old Nick has the code to Door, which is otherwise locked...
Told in Jack's voice, Room is the story of a mother's love for her son, and of a young boy's innocence. Unsentimental yet affecting, devastating yet uplifting, it promises to be the most talked about novel of 2010.
Born in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish writer who lives in Canada. Her fiction includes Kissing the Witch, The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits, and the bestselling Slammerkin.
Man Booker Prize Shortlist 2010
The Finkler Question
$32.99 – Trade paperback / Bloomsbury
Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
Funny, furious, unflinching - an extraordinary novel from the award-winning giant of literature, Howard Jacobson.
Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular and disap... Buy or find out more →
The Long Song
$29.99 – Trade paperback / Headline
You do not know me yet. My son Thomas, who is publishing this book, tells me, it is customary at this place in a novel to give the reader a little taste of the story that is held within these pages. As your storyteller, ... Buy or find out more →
C
$19.95 – Hardcover book / Jonathan Cape
The author of 'one of the great English novels of the past ten years' moves to the next level, with a novel of thrilling action, imagination and ambition, perfect for fans of Bolano and Pynchon. DESCRIPTION OF BOOK C fol... Buy or find out more →
Parrot And Olivier In America
$32.95 – Paperback book / Hamish Hamilton
Short listed for the American Book Award
Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but h... Buy or find out more →
Room
$32.95$22.95 – Trade paperback / Picador
The story of a mother, her son, a locked room and the outside world
Jack is five and, like any little boy, excited at the prospect of presents and cake. He's looking forward to telling his friends it's his birthday, too.... Buy or find out more →
In A Strange Room
$30.00$14.95 – Paperback book / Atlantic Books
The most intense and passionate novel to date from Man Booker-shortlisted author Damon Galgut: 'the bold, fresh voice of South African fiction.' - Observer
A young man takes three journeys, through Greece, India and Afri... Buy or find out more →
