jonathanraban.com
The Site
The Books
"A collection of literature unequaled for style and consistency"
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The Articles
"Raban's occasional journalism is like a running coversation with the world"
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Bits and Bobs
Irregular short contributions from the desk of Jonathan Raban
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books by jonathan raban
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.
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Jonathan Raban's vivid, often funny portrait of metropolitan life is part reportage, part incisive thesis, part intimate autobiography, and a much-quoted classic of the literature of the city. In an age when the big city has fewer friends than ever, this is a passionate and imaginative defense of city life, its "unique plasticity, its privacy and freedom." Soft City, first published in 1974, records one man's attempt to plot a course through the urban labyrinth. Holding up a revealing mirror to the modern city, Raban finds it a stage for a demanding and expressive kind of personal drama.

Reviews

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
Surveillance
Explore the current political climate in this clever, unsettling novel set in a near-future Seattle More >
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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 >
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Waxwings
a caustic, affectionate commentary on the manic gyrations of millennial America More >
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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 >
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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 >
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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 >
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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 >
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For Love & Money: Writing, Reading, Travelling 1968-1987
Reportage, travel writings and literary criticism. More >
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God, Man and Mrs. Thatcher
Provocative pamphlet More >
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Foreign Land
Foreign Land is an exquisitely moving tale of awkward relationships and quiet redemption. More >
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Coasting
“A lively, intensely personal recounting of a voyage into a gifted writer's country and self.” More >
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Old Glory
Witty, elegaic, and magnificently erudite, Old Glory is as filled with strong currents as the Mississippi itself. More >
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Arabia
A must read for anyone seeking to understand the Middle East and it's people. More >
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