The Book of Strange New Things

Michel Faber

Michel Faber is one of those authors that we are lucky to share with others. He never writes a disappointing, less than high-calibre book and this is no exception. Here he explores how we interact with the strange, the foreign, the unusual and the different. You will have to decide whether we (whoever 'we' are) come out of it well. You will have to cope with disappointment, separation and bereavement. The challenge is a reward in itself.

Extract

Ah, the power of silence. He'd first experienced it as a small boy, parked next to his mother at her Quaker meetings. A room full of people who were content to be quiet, who didn't need to defend the boundaries of their egos. There was so much positive energy in that room that he would not have been surprised if the chairs had started to lift off the floor, levitating the whole circle of worshippers to the ceiling. That was how it felt with the Oasans, too.

Parallels