The End of Mr. Y - by Scarlett Thomas (Paperback)

About the Book

Ariel Manto has a fascination with 19th-century scientists--especially Thomas Lumas and "The End of Mr. Y," a book no one alive has read. When she mysteriously uncovers a copy at a used bookstore, Ariel is launched into an adventure of science and faith, consciousness and death, space and time, and everything in between.

Book Synopsis

A cursed book sends a young woman on a philosophical journey through an alternate dimension in this "stylish and dizzying" novel by the author of PopCo (New York Times).

Graduate student Ariel Manto has a fascination with nineteenth-century scientists--especially Thomas Lumas, the mysterious author of The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read. When she uncovers a copy at a used bookstore, Ariel goes down an interdimensional rabbit hole of science and faith, consciousness and death, space and time, and everything in between. And to make matters worse, the CIA is onto her.

Following in Mr. Y's footsteps, Ariel swallows a tincture, stares into a black dot, and is transported into the Troposphere: a wonderland where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. There she begins to understand all the mysteries surrounding the book, herself, and the universe. Or is it all just a hallucination?

From the Back Cover

"Ingenious and original. A cracking good yarn, fizzing with intelligence." -- Philip Pullman

If you knew this book was cursed, would you read it?
When Ariel Manto uncovers a copy of The End of Mr. Y in a second-hand bookstore, she can t believe her eyes. Copies are exceedingly rare, and everyone who has ever read it including its author, Victorian scientist Thomas Lumas-- has disappeared.
Ariel can t resist the promise in the book s history and its pages, and so steps into a thrilling adventure of time, space, love, death, and everything in between.

"Smart [and] stylish." -- International Herald Tribune

"Enormously ambitious and satisfying. It overflows with love for books not just as beautiful artefacts and repositories of secret knowledge, but as gateways into parallel universes." -- Time Out London

Scarlett Thomas is the author of Bright Young Things, Going Out, PopCo, and Our Tragic Universe. ------ORIGINAL 2006 EDITIONIf you knew this book were cursed, would you read it?
Ariel Manto has a fascination with The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read maybe because it's cursed and everyone related to it (the author; various book collectors; Ariel s doctoral advisor, Saul Burlem) disappears. But suddenly she discovers a rare copy in a used bookstore. Following in Mr. Y s footsteps, she falls into a trance and steps into the Troposphere a wonderland of an alternate dimension where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. And so Ariel launches into a heart-racing, brain-teasing, time-twisting adventure of science, faith, consciousness, death, and everything in between.
But what about the curse? Did Burlem read Mr. Y just before he vanished? Did these scary men in gray suits have anything to do with it? And now that Ariel understands the Troposphere--and her place in it will she be able to save the world and still go back to it?

SCARLETT THOMAS is the author of PopCo. She was named one of the twenty best young British writers by the Independent on Sunday in 2001 and Writer of the Year at the 2002 Elle Style Awards. She teaches writing at the University of Kent and lives in Canterbury. "

Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR POPCO

"You might say that Thomas has redefined activism for the Digital Age. Inspired by a venerable tradition, she achieves here a scope and a passion to match the intelligence and empathy her fiction has always had."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Enough code-breaking tips, puzzles and graphs, charts, postscripts and appendixes to satisfy that other mathematician storyteller, Lewis Carroll. "-The New York Times Book Review "An exciting story with a fantastical twist, dive into the world of Ariel Manto and The End of Mr. Y." - armchairinterviews.com "Not only will you have a great time reading this book, but you will finish it a cleverer person." - Jonathan Coe "[A] journey of wonder and danger. Delicious cross-genre literay picnic, breezy and fiercely intelligent, reminiscent of Haruki Murakami." - Kirkus "A combination of postmodern philosophy and physics, spine-tingling science fiction, clever, unexpected narrative twists, and engaging characters." - Library Journal "[S]mart, stylish and dizzying... Consider 'The End of Mr. Y' an accomplished, impressive thought experiment for the 21st Century." - New York Times Book Review "Literary manna for would-be philosophy nerds. There are little, 100-percent-literary sugar plums to be found in its pages." - Salon.com "Exhilarating. A compulsively absorbing thriller. Mr. Y burorrws into the reader's brain, stoking a desire for real-world exploration." - Time Out New York

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