| The Site |
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| The Books |
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"A collection of literature unequaled for style and consistency"
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| The Articles |
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"Raban's occasional journalism is like a running coversation with the world"
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| Bits and Bobs |
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Irregular short contributions from the desk of Jonathan Raban
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| books by jonathan raban |
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Badland: An American Romance | | |
| "No one has evoked with greater power the marriage of land and sky that gives this country both its beauty and its terror."
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| | "No one has evoked with greater power the marriage of land and sky that gives this country both its beauty and its terror."
Washington Post Book World
In 1909 maps still identified eastern Montana as the Great American Desert. But in that year Congress, lobbied heavily by railroad companies, offered 320-acre tracts of land to anyone bold or foolish enough to stake a claim to them. Drawn by shamelessly inventive brochures, countless homesteaders--many of them immigrants--went west to make their fortunes. Most failed. In Bad Land, Jonathan Raban travels through the unforgiving country that was the scene of their dreams and undoing, and makes their story come miraculously alive.
In towns named Terry, Calypso, and Ismay (which changed its name to Joe, Montana, in an effort to attract football fans), and in the landscape in between, Raban unearths a vanished episode of American history, with its own ruins, its own heroes and heroines, its own hopeful myths and bitter memories. Startlingly observed, beautifully written, this book is a contemporary classic of the American West.
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| Reviews |
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In Badland: An American Romance, Raban not only describes Eastern Montana's culture, he explains and contextualizes it.
Tom Cahill, Bootsnall.com, 2006-05-15 more > |
If someone were to come along, dig a moderately deep hole in my garden, give me a metal box and tell me I had half an hour to put together a 2006 time-capsule, Jonathan Raban's new novel is the first thing I'd grab.
Toby Litt, The Guardian, 2006-09-30 more > |
We need sane voices in these times, and they don't come much saner, or indeed much more alert and stylish, than Jonathan Raban's.
Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian, 2006-04-15 more > |
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| the books |
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| Surveillance
|  Explore the current political climate in this clever, unsettling novel set in a near-future Seattle More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
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| My Holy War: Dispatches from the Home Front
|  Raban showcases his unparalleled ability to articulate an incisive intellectual position from the morass More > | buy at amazon (US) >
buy at amazon (UK) >
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| Waxwings
|  a caustic, affectionate commentary on the manic gyrations of millennial America More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
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| Passage to Juneau: a sea and its meanings
|  "Gallivanting around the world in a small boat is a continuing education in one's limitless capacity for self-delusion." More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
buy at Amazon (UK) >
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| Badland: An American Romance
| | "No one has evoked with greater power the marriage of land and sky that gives this country both its beauty and its terror."
More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
buy at Amazon (UK) >
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| Hunting Mr Heartbreak
|  An exhilarating, often deliciously funny book that is at once a travelogue, a social history, and a love letter to the United States. More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
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| Soft City
|  Part fact, part fiction, it holds up a mirror to the modern city and finds there a stage for a unique personal drama. More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
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| For Love & Money: Writing, Reading, Travelling 1968-1987
|  Reportage, travel writings and literary criticism. More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
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| God, Man and Mrs. Thatcher
|  Provocative pamphlet More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
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| Foreign Land
| | Foreign Land is an exquisitely moving tale of awkward relationships and quiet redemption. More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
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| Coasting
|  “A lively, intensely personal recounting of a voyage into a gifted writer's country and self.” More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
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| Old Glory
|  Witty, elegaic, and magnificently erudite, Old Glory is as filled with strong currents as the Mississippi itself. More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
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| Arabia
|  A must read for anyone seeking to understand the Middle East and it's people. More > | buy at Amazon (US) >
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