Small World

A New York Times Editors’ Choice! One of BooklistΓÇÖs ΓÇ£Top 10 Historical Fiction Novels of 2022ΓÇ¥ One of the Los Angeles Times’s ΓÇ£10 Books to Add to Your Reading ListΓÇ¥ One of Book Culture’s Most Anticipated Reads ΓÇ£A bighearted,widescreen American tale.ΓÇ¥ΓÇöKirkus Reviews (starred review) ΓÇ£Masterpiece . . . The quintessential great American novel.ΓÇ¥ΓÇöBooklist (starred review) ΓÇ£A vivid mosaic.ΓÇ¥ΓÇöBookPage (starred review) Jonathan EvisonΓÇÖs Small World is an epic novel for now. Set against such iconic backdrops as the California gold rushthe development of the transcontinental railroadand a speeding train of modern-day strangers forced together by fateit is a grand entertainment that asks big questions. The characters of Small World connect in the most intriguing and meaningful wayswinningbreakingand winning our hearts again. In exploring the passengersΓÇÖ lives and those of their ancestors more than a century beforeSmall World chronicles 170 years of American nation-building from numerous points of view across place and time. And it does it with a fullheartedfull-throttle pace that asks on the most humanintimate scale whether it is truly possible to meetand survivethe choices posedΓÇöand forcedΓÇöby the age. The result is a historical epic with a Dickensian flaira grand entertainment that asks whether our nation has made good on its promises. It dazzles as its characters come to connect with one another through time. And it hits home as it probes at our countryΓÇÖs injusticesbig and smallstraight through to its deeply satisfying final words.