"A hero with Huck Finn's heart and charm, lighting by El Greco and jokes by Punch and Judy. . . . Riddley Walker is haunting and fiercely imagined and—this matters most—intensely ponderable." —Benjamin DeMott, The New York Times Book Review "This is what literature is meant to be." —Anthony Burgess "Russell Hoban has brought off an extraordinary feat of imagination and style. . . . The conviction and consistency are total. Funny, terrible, haunting and unsettling, this book is a masterpiece." —Anthony Thwaite, Observer "Extraordinary . . . Suffused with melancholy and wonder, beautifully written, Riddley Walker is a novel that people will be reading for a long, long time." —Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World "Stunning, delicious, designed to prevent the modern reader from becoming stupid." —John Leonard, The New York Times "Highly enjoyable . . . An intriguing plot . . . Ferociously inventive." —Walter Clemons, Newsweek "Astounding . . . Hoban's soaring flight of imagination is that golden rarity, a dazzlingly realized work of genius." —Jane Clapperton, Cosmopolitan "An imaginative intensity that is rare in contemporary fiction.' —Paul Gray, Time Riddley Walker is a brilliant, unique, completely realized work of fiction. One reads it again and again, discovering new wonders every time through. Set in a remote future in a post-nuclear holocaust England (Inland), Hoban has imagined a humanity regressed to an iron-age, semi-literate state—and invented a language to represent it. Riddley is at once the Huck Finn and the Stephen Dedalus of his culture—rebel, change agent, and artist. Read again or for the first time this masterpiece of 20th-century literature with new material by the author.

The revered author of books for all ages, from Bread and Jam for Frances to Turtle Diary, gives the literary performance of a lifetime in this taut psychological thriller about a boy who tries desperately to stop failing. Things are already looking a little funny to Nick Hartley after he loses yet another fight with Harry Buncher--and gets his head bashed into a wall in the bargain. So he is less confused than he ordinarily would when he meets Moe Nagic, a homeless man with a puzzle and a secret to sell. Moe offers Nick a way to visit Trokeville, the world that exists at the edge of the picture puzzle. Nick has to go there, if he's ever going to change the way his life is going. But he soon discovers the devastating danger of the journey: His mind could leave him stranded there, with no way of returning! Written with the power and precision of a great author, The Trokeville Way is a provocative masterpiece for our time. From the Hardcover edition.

Peter Diggs first meets Amaryllis at a bus stop next to a sign reading Balsamic, though there is nothing very vinegary about the place. When the bus arrives it towers above them - a gigantic pink, yellow and orange rice-paper bus, candlelit from within like a Japanese lantern. The next time he sees her, he's in the Science Museum fascinated by the convoluted construction of Klein bottles. The first meeting is a dream, the second a reality. 'Trust me, I'm a weirdo,' says Amaryllis, as she and Peter embark on a journey which leaves none of us quiet sure where the nights end and the days begin.