Spanning six decades from 1984 to a climate-ravaged 2043, the novel follows Holly Sykes, an English teenager who runs away from home after a family quarrel and unwittingly becomes entangled in a secret war between two factions of psychically gifted immortals. Told through a shifting cast of narrators, including a caddish novelist, a war reporter, and Holly herself at different ages, it moves from suburban England to Cambridge, Iraq, a literary festival circuit, and beyond. Beneath its globe-trotting realism runs a hidden supernatural plot about soul transmigration that only fully surfaces as the decades, and the world's fortunes, wind down.
Books mentioned in The Bone Clocks (26)
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer: “But if I were forced at gunpoint to pick the twentieth-century war novel, I'd opt for Mailer's The Naked and the Dead.”
Best Kept Secret by Jeffrey Archer: “Only when nib touches paper do I notice I am signing a novel called Best Kept Secret by Jeffrey Archer.”
Escape from Colditz by P. R. Reid: “That's Escape from Colditz stuff, that's The Count of Monte Cristo, and people eat that shit with a spoon.”
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: “That's Escape from Colditz stuff, that's The Count of Monte Cristo, and people eat that shit with a spoon.”
The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton: “I'd borrowed The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton for him the day before he arrived because Kath'd told me he was a fierce reader, like Sharon.”
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: “"So many books, so little time, I know... but Crane remains unsurp[assed]" — on "the granddaddy of firsthand war accounts has to be Crane's The Red Badge of Courage."”
The Key by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki: “December 13, 2020: "THE KEY by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki: That's the one."”
On the Nature of Things by Lucretius: “I turn to my place in Lucretius's De Rerum Natura, but my thoughts, if not my soul, are still a mile or two to the west.”
Metamorphoses by Ovid: “First, though, I intend to finish a commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses.”
The Human Stain by Philip Roth: “My favorite line from Roth's The Human Stain: "Nothing lasts, and yet nothing passes, either, and nothing passes just because nothing lasts."”
The Art of War by Sun Tzu: “"'Cause you're reading a book called The Art of War." "Oh, that."”
Lord of the Flies by William Golding: “our Pembridge Place house was as bereft of adults as all but the last two pages of Lord of the Flies.”
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann: “I obey, then find my place in The Magic Mountain.”
High-Rise by J. G. Ballard: “Ballard's novel High Rise, where a state-of-the-art London tower block is the vertical stage for civilization to unpeel itself until nothing but primal violence remains.”
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut: “I hear what you're saying about Slaughterhouse-Five, Lord Brittan.”
Ulysses by James Joyce: “Will I die without ever reading Ulysses to the end?”
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett: “The following day, I took Jacko to work with me and—not a word of a lie—he pulled Waiting for Godot off the shelves.”
Youth: A Narrative by Joseph Conrad: “I've no idea whether Conrad's Youth is bringing him the pleasure it used to, or whether it's a torment to be reminded of happier days.”
Inside the Whale by George Orwell: “She goes outside with a book called Inside the Whale by George Orwell; we did his Animal Farm in English, so maybe I can impress her later.”
Animal Farm by George Orwell: “She goes outside with a book called Inside the Whale by George Orwell; we did his Animal Farm in English, so maybe I can impress her later.”
Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot: “Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint an excerpt from "Journey of the Magi" from Collected Poems 1909–1962 by T. [S. Eliot] (epigraph, per the book's permissions page)”
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder: “The Kent marshes are not dotted with cozy barns full of warm straw, like in Little House on the Prairie.”
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens: “God, this is sounding like Oliver Twist.”
The Season of Divorce by John Cheever: “"Don't know how you've stuck at politics for three years." ... John Cheever has a short story called "The Season of Divorce." It's one of his best.”
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: “Wendy Hanger considers criminal networks, the FBI, The Da Vinci Code—but smiles, shyly.”
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer: “A minnow of déjà vu darts by and its name is Geoffrey Chaucer: "Now, Sirs," quoth he, "if it be you so lief To finde Death, turn up this crooked way, For in that grove I left him, by my fay, Under a tree, and there he will abide …" (low confidence: no title stated, but the verbatim quoted lines are recognizably from the Pardoner's Tale,…”
Books that mention The Bone Clocks (1)
Words Are My Matter by Ursula K. Le Guin: “David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks.”