Description
The electrifying follow-up to Dave Eggers' New York Times Bestseller The Circle
'Gulpable fictive entertainment . . . Eggers is a wonderful storyteller with an alert and defiant vision' Observer
When the world's largest search engine / social media company merges with the planet's dominant e-commerce site, it creates the richest and most dangerous-and, oddly enough, most beloved-monopoly ever known: The Every.
Delaney Wells is an unlikely new hire. A former forest ranger and unwavering tech skeptic, she charms her way into an entry-level job with one goal in mind: to take down the company from within. With her compatriot, the not-at-all-ambitious Wes Kavakian, they look for the company's weaknesses, hoping to free humanity from all-encompassing surveillance and the emoji-driven infantilization of the species. But does anyone want what Delaney is fighting to save? Does humanity truly want to be free?
Studded with unforgettable characters and lacerating set-pieces, The Every blends satire and terror, while keeping the reader in breathless suspense about the fate of the company - and the human animal.
'More playful and satirical than Orwell . . . it scores as a series of brilliant set pieces and a devastating overall critique.' Sunday Times
'Part of the genius of this remarkable piece of satire, riven as it is with horribly plausible ideas and horribly good jokes. . . . What Eggers does so well is make The Every alluring as well as alarming...' The Times
'You read it and think: yes, this is set in the future but it is actually going on here and now. It is an urgent and necessary book. It's also fun. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar' The Scotsman
About the Author
Dave Eggers is the author of many acclaimed books, including The Circle; What is the What and Zeitoun.
He is the founder of the publishing house and magazine McSweeney's and the cofounder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing center that has inspired similar programs around the world.
His work has been translated into forty-two languages.
Reviews
Eggers proposes an uncanny world, on the border between the impossible-to-imagine and the already-in-play. Every reader is implicated. We are all members of that passive army willing to trade freedom for convenience. As digital culture blossomed, people wondered if machines could be made to think like people. The more compelling question is the one Eggers poses in The Every: Are people content to become machines? * Sherry Turkle, author of The Empathy Diaries *
Hilarious and horrifying and idealistic. An unusual combination in a novel, or in anything else, really, but here the necessary result of a powerful writer taking on much of what matters most to our future * Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West *
Sparkles with provocative ideas * Publishers Weekly *
Once a decade a book like The Every advances the frontier of literary excellence: a book that reflects our culture. Predicts our future. Worm-holes into our subconscious. Delivers artful and complex characters, metaphor, ideas, narrative. Provides percussive movements of levity, gravity, grace, suspense, hilarity." * The Boston Globe *
[This is a] remarkable piece of satire, riven as it is with horribly plausible ideas and horribly good jokes. It's one thing to sound a warning about how we are on a slippery slope to a kind of consumerist fascism where we exchange liberty for convenience. What Eggers does so well is make The Every alluring as well as alarming . . . Eight years after The Circle was published, there is all too little that rings false about its predictions about social media. If the same is true of The Every, we are in even more trouble than we thought we were. * The Times *
An entertainingly horrifying portrait of a civilisation meekly enslaving itself to the power of the app * Metro *
Eggers does us a service in underlining the sinister directions tech is taking... In its timing, The Every is right on the cryptocurrency * i *
The plot is prescient and spookily plausible, and Eggers is always entertainingly spot on in his targets * Mail on Sunday *
Gulpable fictive entertainment . . . Eggers is a wonderful storyteller with an alert and defiant vision * Observer *
You read it and think: yes, this is set in the future but it is actually going on here and now. It is an urgent and necessary book. It's also fun. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar * The Scotsman *
More playful and satirical than Orwell, Eggers's digital totalitarianism is a touchy-feely affair; where Orwell has the boot on the face, Eggers has online shopping and emojis. But it is no less of a serious warning . . . it scores as a series of brilliant set pieces and a devastating overall critique. * Sunday Times *
Book Information
ISBN 9780241535493
Author Dave Eggers
Format Paperback
Page Count 608
Imprint Hamish Hamilton Ltd
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 590g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 135mm * 43mm
