The absolute book

Title:

The absolute book

Author:

Knox, Elizabeth, author.

ISBN:

9780241473924

9780241473931

Physical Description:

628 pages ; 24 cm

Summary:

"The epic fantasy that's taking the world by storm--a bewitching story about a revenge killing, a mysterious scroll box that has survived centuries of fires, and the book that changed everything Taryn Cornick believes that the past--her sister's violent death, and her own ill-conceived revenge--is behind her, and she can get on with her life. She has written a successful book about the dangers that threaten libraries... but not all of the attention it brings her is good. Questions arise about a fire in the library at her grandparents' house and about the whereabouts of an ancient scroll box known as the Firestarter. A policeman, Jacob Berger, also has questions, about a cold case. Then a shadowy young man named Shift appears, forcing Taryn and Jacob toward a reckoning felt in more than one world. The Absolute Book is an epic fantasy with an intimate tone; one in which hidden treasures are recovered, wicked things resurface, dead sisters are a living force, and great beauty is born of lies and treachery. It is a book of journeys and returns, from contemporary England to a magical land of great beauty and peace but is founded on treachery, from New Zealand to Purgatory itself. Above all, it is a declaration of love for stories and the ways in which they shape our worlds"--

General Note:

"First published in New Zealand in a slightly different form by Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2019" -- Title page verso.

Contents:

Part one. Insects: A book with a light in its long perspective ; The muleskinner -- Part two. Fire: Matron of honour ; The library at Princes Gate, 1995 ; Documentary evidence ; The Bibliothèque Méjanes -- Part three. Light: The island of apples ; Norfolk ; Night in a tree ; The firestarter ; Nil by mouth ; Brutal -- Part four. Damp: Failing kindness ; The pale lady ; The summer road ; The island of women ; Kernow's story ; Go to your gate ; Questions from the audience ; Green pressure -- Part five. Carelessness: Two graves ; Basil Cornick's screen test ; Mimir's well ; A Torah above the Torah ; Taken lightly ; Quarry house -- Part six. Uncaring: The moot ; Call and response ; Purgatory ; Neve's story ; Tintern ; The folly.

Genre:

Fantasy fiction.

Epic fiction.

Subject:

Scrolls -- Fiction.

Fire -- Fiction.

Libraries -- Fiction.

Multiverse -- Fiction.

Fire.

Libraries

Scrolls.

Fantasy fiction.

Epic fiction.

Available:*

Library	Collection	Material Type	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
Searching... Cobourg Branch	Searching... Unknown	Adult Fiction Fantasy	F Kno FY	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Taryn Cornick believes her sister Bea was deliberately run down, and killed. She believes it so hard she allows a man called the Muleskinner to exact the justice Bea was denied. An eye for an eye.

Which is when Taryn's problems really begin.

Because the police suspect Taryn's involvement in the death.

Worse, others have their eyes on Taryn - those in a faraway place who know what Taryn's family have been carefully hiding in their vast library. The Absolute Book. They want it - and they want Taryn to help find it.

For the lives of those in more than one world depend upon it . . .

Author Notes

Elizabeth Knox is the author of thirteen novels, three novellas, and a collection of essays. The Vintner¿s Luck, won the Deutz Medal for Fiction in the 1999 Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and the Tasmania Pacific Region Prize, and is published in thirteen languages. Dreamhunter, won the 2006 Esther Glen Medal. Dreamhunter¿s sequel Dreamquake, 2007, was a Michael L Printz Honor book for 2008 and, in the same year, was named an ALA, a CCBC, Booklist, and New York Library best book. A collection of essays, The Love School won the biography and memoir section of the New Zealand Post book awards in 2009. Mortal Fire won a NZ Post Children¿s book award and was a finalist in the LA Times Book Awards. Elizabeth¿s last book is horror/science fiction, Wake. Elizabeth is an Arts Foundation Laureate and was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002. She lives in Wellington with her husband, Fergus Barrowman, and her son, Jack.

(Bowker Author Biography)