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The Paper Lantern

By: Will Burns
Narrated by: Will Burns
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Publisher's summary

Set in a shuttered pub—The Paper Lantern—in a village in the very middle of the country adjacent to the Prime Minister's Chequers Estate, an unnamed narrator embarks on a series of walks in the Chiltern Hills. As he charts and interrogates the shifts in mood and understanding that have defined a transformative period in his own history and that of the surrounding area, he reveals a past scarred with trauma and a present lacking compass. Traversing local raves in secret valleys, to climate change and capitalism, The Paper Lantern creates a tangible, lived-in complicated rendering of a place, at the moment when the very sense of place itself is being questioned.

©2021 Will Burns (P)2021 Orion Publishing Group

Critic reviews

"Will Burns is a soulful English poet of the kind we don't make enough of." (Max Porter)

"Hugely affecting and timely." (Luke Turner)

"A boldly struck chord, one that contains many of the dissonances, but also the harmonies, found in England today." (Chris Power)

"When future generations come to ask themselves when England lost it and what it lost, they will pick up The Paper Lantern." (Michael Hofmann, TLS)

"A remarkable achievement in a book that feels at once timely and deeply considered." (Irish Times)

"A book that speaks powerfully about what it is to be English and about the impact of coronavirus on our national psyche." (Observer)

"Will Burns is the new Defoe." (Adelle Stripe)

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