The Circle is the exhilarating new novel from Dave Eggers, bestselling author of A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award. When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company's modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO.
Mae can't believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world - even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman's ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge. Praise for A Hologram for the King: "A comic but deeply affecting tale about one man's travails that also provides a bright, digital snapshot of our times". (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times). "Impressive, startling, compelling. Proves how staggering a genius Eggers can be". (Independent). "Hugely impressive. Why can't British novelists tell a tale as crisply as Dave Eggers? Sets off at a cracking pace and never lets up". (Mail on Sunday). Dave Eggers is the founder and editor of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house based in San Francisco.
He is the author of seven previous books, including A Hologram for the King (finalist for the National Book Award 2012), Zeitoun (winner of the American Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize) and What is the What, which was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award and won France's Prix Medicis.
Industry Reviews
Prescient, important and enjoyable ... a deft modern synthesis of Swiftian wit with Orwellian prognostication' Guardian A stunning work of terrifying plausability ... a worthy and entertaining read Publisher's Weekly Eggers has set his style and pace to technothriller: the writing is brisk, spare and efficient ... it works Time The Circle is 'Brave New World' for our brave new world ... fast, witty and troubling Washington Post An elegantly told, compulsively readable parable for the 21st Century Vanity Fair Eggers's writing is so fluent, his ventriloquism of tech-world dialect so light, his denouement so enjoyably inevitable Observer A gripping and highly unsettling read Sunday Times Unputdownable Times Tremendous novel ... inventive, big hearted and very funny. Prepare to be addicted Daily Mail Compelling and deeply contemporary L.A Times Eggers brilliantly depicts the Internet binges, torrents of information and endless loops of feedback that increasingly characterize modern life Booklist
