Each tale in this slim, elegant book does something most of us wish would happen to us in real life: It stops us in a humdrum moment and reveals how that small, unnoticed sliver of time can illuminate an entire life . . . Magic." ―Oprah.com, Book of the Week McGregor’s stroke of ingenuity is to make us think this is all adding up to be a murder mystery/crime kind of novel, while all the time writing an entirely different of book.

Reservoir 13 (McGregor) - Discussion Questions - LitLovers Reservoir 13 (McGregor) - Discussion Questions - LitLovers

Jon McGregor’s first novel brilliantly evokes the histories and lives of the people in the street to build up an unforgettable human panorama. Breathtakingly original, humane and moving, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is an astonishing debut.” He wanted to tell Lynsey and then he felt himself give way, hugely, the breath drawn out of him. It was like slipping into the reservoir in the middle of summer, the ice-cold water against his hot skin and all the sudden silence. He went way below the surface, into the dark, down to the silt and the stone foundations of the flooded villages, down to the unrelenting pull of the sluice.” I enjoy reading about reality...but maybe this book was a little ‘too’ real to call entertaining? Haha!! October 2019 water situation reports added for all areas except Lincs and Northants, and Solent and S Downs. These will be added as soon as they become available.Here are a few top tips and essential gear items that you might need for your Peak District hike. If you’re new to hiking then feel free to ask any questions in the comments or sign up to receive weekly walks (see above) and join our Facebook group for more tips. Essential gear Salomon XA Pro 3D hiking shoes on a summer hike Jon McGregor is a terrifyingly ingenious writer. He brings to his writing not only the gift of seeing and imagining, but the capacity of hypothesizing and hypnotizing. Reservoir 13 allures readers into an engrossing journey only to end within ourselves, where reality is the darkest fairytale." -- Yiyun Li, PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author of Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor | Waterstones

Jon McGregor has always been interested in that kind of connection, too. His first novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2002, a rare accolade for a debut (I was a judge that year). Set on a single summer’s day in a suburban street, the novel flows between its characters and their quotidian lives, no detail too small to escape the writer’s notice. It is a hymn to the ordinary, and with it the author marked out his territory. His third novel, Even the Dogs – which investigates the life of a chronic alcoholic in the aftermath of his death – won the IMPAC Literary Award in 2012. These stories are illuminated by Jon McGregor's fearless and humane imagination. Both tragic and comic, they form a polyphonic portrait of a people and a place. Exhilarating." -- Katie Kitamura Weaving together different characters, interspersing private thoughts with public dramas, fleeting details with life-changing events, McGregor builds an extraordinary collective symphony of community life. It’s the fruition of a project that began with his Booker-longlisted debut, 2002’s If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, which focuses on the inhabitants of a single street over the course of one day, and continued in the Impac-winning Even the Dogs (2010), where the narrative is shared between a group of homeless addicts. “It’s the idea that you have lots of people and they’re individuals but they overlap,” McGregor explains. In Reservoir 13 he uses the passive voice to evoke a communal identity, which encompasses a shared unconscious where the missing girl haunts the villagers’ dreams, and a curtain-twitching nosiness in which everybody knows everybody else’s business. The cover of Sheehan’s enjoyable debut novel makes wry reference to the notion that it sits somewhere between comedy, road trip and tragedycorrect, but this exercise in literary plate-spinning just about pulls off its conceit. Conceived as a way in which Sheehan could explore his interest in the siege of Sarajevo in the mid-1990s and what he calls the epidemic of suicide in Ireland’s young people, three old school friends reconvene on a trip through California, trying to help Tom overcome the PTSD he is suffering after experiencing the war in Bosnia – which itself is presented in ghastly detail in alternate chapters. There’s some fine Irish comedy along the way, and Sheehan adeptly pierces the nature of lasting friendship, even if it sometimes teeters on the edge of caricature. Reservoir 13 is, quite simply, an extraordinary novel. It gives an innovative twist to the device of a missing girl; has a meticulously plotted structure and a mesmeric poetic style of writing.Through meticulous layering of details and repetition Reservoir 13 marks the turning of the years. Every chapter, each of which takes us one year on, begins in the same way: a sentence noting the fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Yet with a few small changes McGregor shows how life is changing for this community. McGregor's publishers must be openly rejoicing . . . If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things is the work of a burning new talent." --Elizabeth Buchan, Daily Mail (UK) Absolutely magnificent; one of the most beautiful, affecting novels I've read in years. The prose is alive and ringing. There is so much space and life in every sentence. I don't know how he's done it. It's beautiful." -- Eimear McBride, Baileys Women's Prize-winning author of A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing Group therapy is an intriguing choice of subject matter. As participants are urged to choose smiley or unhappy emojis to describe their week, and dancers arrive to encourage expression through movement, the whole narrative feels poised between scepticism, impatience and admiration. Robert walks out twice. But the novel holds us there in the room. It’s in these sessions that we come closest to the kind of collective voice that McGregor has explored in previous novels – in the shared narration of the troubled, vociferous, unheard addicts of Even the Dogs, rising between them like a Greek chorus, and in the passive, impersonal recording of the whole village in Reservoir 13. Now the strenuously made words of the group members float together on a common stream of effort.

A Girl Vanishes. But in This Novel, Time Is the Real Mystery.

This is the furthest northerly hike on the list, with beautiful viewsacross Greenfield and Dovestone Reservoirs, waterfalls plus some scrambling up Birchen Clough and the iconic The Trinnacles this walk has something for everyone! As a novel about the consequences of addiction--particularly heroin addiction-- Even the Dogs is harrowing. It details the physical, psychological, social and environmental damage, and portrays the all-consuming nature of the life . . . Using ghosts as narrators gives the book a haunting overtone. It lends resonance even to a simple observation like 'We see things differently now.' And it lets McGregor write with a gritty omniscience." ― New York Times Book Review You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. Jon McGregor by the ‘Hardy tree’ in St Pancras graveyard, London, growing from gravestones moved while Thomas Hardy worked there. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian Peak District Walks have their own charity patches raising funds forthe 'Peak District Mountain Rescue Organisation' (charity no. 506681) -supporting the seven Mountain Rescue Teams in the Peak District.

McGregor masterfully employs a free, indirect style that forgoes quotation marks and seamlessly blends narrative, dialogue, and wonderfully observant, poetic musings. . . . Longlisted for the Man Booker, McGregor's novel's subtly devastating impact ultimately imparts wisdom about the tenuous and priceless gift of life. For fans of Elizabeth Strout and Richard Russo." -- Booklist (starred review) Please note 'Peak District Walks' accepts no liability for any injuries or accidents resulting from walking our routes. We always recommend you wear appropriate footwear to avoid injuries and to take a paper map and compass on your walks. Read more here. The cycle of human life is echoed in the rhythms of the natural world — the flowering of trees and wild plants, mating and hibernation of wildlife and weather conditions marking the changing of the seasons.

Jon McGregor: ‘I’m allergic to trying to make points in

McGregor’s prose is rhythmic and measured, seeming simple on the surface yet with such precision and detail that you feel immersed in the life of this community and drawn towards its inhabitants. It’s the kind of writing that can easily sweep you along. I forced myself to slow down, reading just one chapter a night so I could savour it more fully. If you want a traditional crime or mystery novel, this is not it. It could almost be described as a series of damp squibs, which is an appropriate metaphor in one way: every subsequent chapter starts “ At midnight when the year turned…” and uses the proximity and number of fireworks to reflect the gradual return to how things used to be. However, it’s too derogatory a metaphor for such a well-crafted book.

I liked this book although it was one of those books where, as I approached the end, I felt very creeped out…i.e., ‘who committed the terrible crime?’. I stressed “very” in Absolutely OUTSTANDING . . . Jon McGregor is a writer who will make a significant stamp on world literature. In fact, he already has . . . an incredible book, I just adored it." --Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of Let The Great World Spin Alongside descriptions of specific characters McGregor also refers to the lives of peripheral individuals in a striking way. A man moves to the village and people think of him as “the widower” even though no one knows the specifics of his situation. It turns out that his wife isn't dead at all; they are merely separated. Yet, the community still think of him as a widower and never get to know many more details of his life. The false impression about him has been cemented in the public's consciousness in a way which is both tragic and comic. A similar impression is given of the missing girl's parents who are viewed from a distance in a way that we can see hints of their painful conflict, but don't really fully understand or know them. A different but equally meaningful effect is created when we get a slight understanding of the domestic abuse a mother receives at the hands of her mentally/behaviourally-disabled child or the fear of a woman who escaped a painfully destructive marriage or a man's conflicted feelings about his son's homosexuality. Other characters are hesitant to intrude upon these characters personal lives making the reader feel the excruciating sting of isolation.