Name: The Gift of Stones
ISBN: 9780330453325

Jim Crace

From the acclaimed author of Quarantine, a mesmeric novel that breathes life into a distant age.

The Gift of Stones

'Salute the liars - they can make the real world disappear and a fresh world take its place...' Set in a coastal Stone Age village at the advent of bronze, Jim Crace's second novel, published for the first time in Penguin paperback, is marked by astonishing poetic resonance and daring imagination. As the stories of the narrators unfold, conflicting truths are revealed - truths which deal with contemporary issues of work, love, lying and forces of change.

Melody Izard

This is Stone Age tale about inevitable change. About the meanness of humans. About the tenderness too. Those who don't change get left behind and trampled on. The world is full of stories and there has to be someone who takes the time to observe and process and share. The storyteller gets to shape the past.

A coastal community live prosperously crafting fine stone tools. But their proud insularity is breached by raiders, and in the violence a boy loses his arm. Useless as a knapper, he finds a role as the village storyteller, roaming far and returning home with fantastically embellished tales. When the arrival of a new metal threatens all their livelihoods, his fearless imagination becomes a lifesaving gift.

The Gift of Stones

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