Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
The Invention of Everything Else - Samantha Hunt

The Invention of Everything Else

By: Samantha Hunt

Paperback | 1 March 2009

At a Glance

Paperback


$35.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $8.94 with

 or 

Ships in 10 to 15 business days

From the moment Louisa first catches sight of the strange man who occupies a forbidden room on the thirty-third floor, she is determined to befriend him.Unbeknownst to Louisa, he is Nikola Tesla--inventor of AC electricity and wireless communication--and he is living out his last days at the Hotel New Yorker.Winning his attention through a shared love of pigeons, she eventually uncovers the story of Tesla's life as a Serbian immigrant and a visionary genius: as a boy he built engines powered by June bugs, as a man he dreamed of pulling electricity from the sky.The mystery deepens when Louisa reunites with an enigmatic former classmate and faces the loss of her father as he attempts to travel to the past to meet up with his beloved late wife. Before the week is out, Louisa must come to terms with her own understanding of love, death, and the power of invention.
The Invention of Everything Else immerses the reader in a magical mid-twentieth-century New York City thrumming with energy, wonder, and possibility.
Industry Reviews
An engaging portrait...and a poignant one of Tesla...There's much food for thought here and some very beautiful prose. Kirkus Reviews

"Hunt (The Seas) delivers a breathtaking novel that is both difficult to classify and impossible to ignore. Library Journal

Oddly charming and pleasantly peculiar, Hunt's novel offers a unique perspective on hope and imagining life's possibilities. Booklist, ALA

"Inspires both awe and envy...Hunt seems to achieve this blend effortlessly...making it more remarkable still with her own offbeat sensibility. Bookpage

A New York City chambermaid sparks a friendship with oddball inventor Nikola Tesla in Samantha Hunt's dazzling novel. Vanity Fair

Sophisticated pastiche of science fiction, fantasy, melodrama, and historical anecdote...It all adds up to a precocious math of human marvel. Elle

Former real-life scientist Nikola Tesla befriends a fictional hotel chambermaid in Samantha Hunt's ingenious work of historical fiction. Marie Claire

Hunt's magical new novel is a love letter to one of the world's most remarkable inventors...For a moment...everything seems possible. The Washington Post

"[Hunt] puts her considerable talents to work...Tesla's story...is crafted with an intensity...that makes the heart beat faster." Los Angeles Times

Full of vivid imagery, sounds, memories...this novel is a sweet story of just how normal it is to be different. Boston Globe

"Hunt's history-steeped tale...reminds us that science necessitates creativity, which also, of course, is the essence of literature. The San Francisco Chronicle

In her vivid reimagining...Hunt pursues the links between science and creativity and storytelling and invention to their logical extreme." New York Magazine

"Glorious...pages of prose: daring and delicious, perfectly calibrated, fresh but not raw, original but neither off-putting nor disconcertingly strange. The Chicago Tribune

"[INVENTION is] a smart, colorful novel about aspiration and wish fulfillment in a world...engineers can't control. - The Believer

Hunt's fascination with language is unmistakable, resulting in beautiful, intimate observations . . . elegant, inspired. The Village Voice

Marvelous...one wishes these scenes would never end...[it] takes its readers back to a kindler, gentler New York." - LA Weekly

Hunt weaves the stranger-than-fiction facts...into an engaging novel...that crackles with the possibility and promise of scientific innovation. - Seed

An electrified, magnetized concoction that pleases, teases and dazzles...takeoff soaring with her, you will not be disappointed... - The Oregonian

"The author is rapturous, vividly in love with her subjects and her characters. - New York Observer

[Hunt's] novel might be 2008's 'Special Topics in Calamity Physics'...soulful and scientific at the same time. - Velocity Weekly

"Hunt weaves history and imagination to create a seductively original world..." -- Heidi Julavits, author of The Uses of Enchantment

"A highwire performance by a soulful and wildly intelligent writer." -- Rene Steinke, author of the NBA-nominated Holy Skirts

"You hold in your hands an important, fun, educational, magic read. -- Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng

More in Historical Fiction

The Shock of the Light - Lori Inglis Hall

RRP $34.99

$22.99

34%
OFF
Pilbara - Judy Nunn

Paperback

RRP $34.99

$19.99

43%
OFF
Musashi: Book Three - Sun, Moon and Perfect Clarity : The Novel - Eiji Yoshikawa
The Girl with the Suitcase - Lesley Pearse

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Hagtale : A Macbeth origin story - Sally O'Reilly

RRP $29.99

$24.99

17%
OFF
Between Sisters - Kristin Hannah

RRP $34.99

$19.99

43%
OFF
The Duke's Secret - Sue Williams

RRP $34.99

$28.75

18%
OFF
Cleopatra - Saara El-Arifi

Paperback

RRP $34.99

$24.99

29%
OFF
The Red Winter : Power is a hungry beast - Cameron Sullivan

RRP $34.99

$28.75

18%
OFF
Kingdom, Vol. 2 : Kingdom - Yasuhisa Hara

RRP $22.99

$20.75

10%
OFF
The Red Winter : Power is a hungry beast - Cameron Sullivan

RRP $55.00

$42.75

22%
OFF
The Society of Literary Marauders - Sasha Wasley

RRP $34.99

$24.99

29%
OFF
The Chateau on Sunset - Natasha Lester

SIGNED COPY

RRP $34.99

$19.99

43%
OFF
Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

RRP $22.99

$20.75

10%
OFF