Station Eleven: A Novel (National Book Award Finalist)
This Anniversary Edition of Station Eleven, a finalist for the National Book Award and named a Best Book of the Twenty-First Century by the New York Times, celebrates ten years of this now iconic novel with a new color illustration and a guide to “The Mandelverse”
A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days following civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
It is fifteen years after a flu pandemic wiped out most of the world's population. Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony, a small troupe moving over the gutted landscape, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. But when they arrive in the outpost of St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave. Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the disaster brought everyone here, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty, telling a story about the relationships that sustain us.
A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days following civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
It is fifteen years after a flu pandemic wiped out most of the world's population. Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony, a small troupe moving over the gutted landscape, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. But when they arrive in the outpost of St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave. Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the disaster brought everyone here, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty, telling a story about the relationships that sustain us.
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✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say *Station Eleven* offers a poetic, character-driven exploration of a post-pandemic world that balances loss with warmth and hope. Many prai...
It was a very compelling read. It makes one think of how one would react in an apocalypse. I hope I would not disgrace myself.
I'm still trying to figure out how to review this book. Interesting premise, confusing execution.
The flow from one character into the next then all of a sudden a back story of a different character turned me off a bit.
I the end it did tie them all together but it look a long a winding road to get there... Much like the traveling symphony took in the book..
thenextgoodbook.com
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
333 pages
What’s it about?
Imagine that a pandemic quickly spreads throughout the modern world killing 98% of the population. Over time, society as you know is falls away. No technology, electricity, or communication. The world becomes a place of small, isolated communities. Ms. Mandel takes us back and forth in time from the world as we know it, to this post pandemic world she has created.
What did it make me think about?
Possibilities..... Not all good.
Should I read it?
It is the best kind of book- a book you miss as soon as you finish. I do not think of myself as a fan of post- apocalyptic novels, but I loved this book. Ms. Mandel seems to have a different approach in this novel. "Station Eleven" seems interested in the concept of how you would begin to rebuild a society. Fascinating!
Quote-
"I don't remember my parents. Actually just impressions. I remember hot air coming out of vents in winter, and machines that played music. I remember what computers looked like with the screen lit up. I remember how you could open a fridge, and cold air and light would spill out. Or freezers, even colder, with those little squares of ice in trays. Do you remember fridges?"
9 stars
If you liked this try-
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
On a Such a Full See by Chang-rae Lee
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
333 pages
What’s it about?
Imagine that a pandemic quickly spreads throughout the modern world killing 98% of the population. Over time, society as you know is falls away. No technology, electricity, or communication. The world becomes a place of small, isolated communities. Ms. Mandel takes us back and forth in time from the world as we know it, to this post pandemic world she has created.
What did it make me think about?
Possibilities..... Not all good.
Should I read it?
It is the best kind of book- a book you miss as soon as you finish. I do not think of myself as a fan of post- apocalyptic novels, but I loved this book. Ms. Mandel seems to have a different approach in this novel. "Station Eleven" seems interested in the concept of how you would begin to rebuild a society. Fascinating!
Quote-
"I don't remember my parents. Actually just impressions. I remember hot air coming out of vents in winter, and machines that played music. I remember what computers looked like with the screen lit up. I remember how you could open a fridge, and cold air and light would spill out. Or freezers, even colder, with those little squares of ice in trays. Do you remember fridges?"
9 stars
If you liked this try-
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
On a Such a Full See by Chang-rae Lee
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
It feels strange to describe a novel as “tender,” “hopeful,” or “sweetly yearning” when its central premise is a post-pandemic collapse of civilization. And yet, Emily St. John Mandel not only weaves such a novel, but also succeeds in creating a work that defies easy categorization and transcends genre.
The post-apocalyptic setting isn’t new, and considering the multi-year pandemic we recently lived through, neither is the threat of annihilation by microbe. Similarly, deeply flawed yet sympathetic characters are not revolutionary. But the care taken with each disparate narrative thread kept me marveling at the wonder of the world — both the fictional, titular Station Eleven and for our own imperfect, present-day, real-life world — even as the unspooling story kept me fully and deeply engaged.
As an extended ode to human ingenuity, the importance of connection, the enduring power and necessity of art… I clearly loved this.
The post-apocalyptic setting isn’t new, and considering the multi-year pandemic we recently lived through, neither is the threat of annihilation by microbe. Similarly, deeply flawed yet sympathetic characters are not revolutionary. But the care taken with each disparate narrative thread kept me marveling at the wonder of the world — both the fictional, titular Station Eleven and for our own imperfect, present-day, real-life world — even as the unspooling story kept me fully and deeply engaged.
As an extended ode to human ingenuity, the importance of connection, the enduring power and necessity of art… I clearly loved this.
Station Eleven concerns two things that I don’t really like to read about; post-apocalypse America, and Hollywood actors. Post-apocalypse America has been explored in every which way and at this point its become tiresome; Hollywood is dull and sleazy and glossy and grimey and I don’t find it interesting and I don’t like to read about the things it does to people (has there ever been a good book about Hollywood?). So I shouldn’t have liked this book. And I did, very much.
It was warm, and there was a lot of love. That’s more than I thought it was possible to have in a superflu novel. Of course there is loss and violence and grief and the many horrible things humans are capable of. But the caravans are trundling around Lake Michigan, and Oberon and Titania are being summoned to campfires in the wild, and there’s a glittering paperweight, and an entire copy of Station Eleven still exists. Culture didn’t collapse, didn’t fade away. Survival is insufficient. This though, this is enough.
It was warm, and there was a lot of love. That’s more than I thought it was possible to have in a superflu novel. Of course there is loss and violence and grief and the many horrible things humans are capable of. But the caravans are trundling around Lake Michigan, and Oberon and Titania are being summoned to campfires in the wild, and there’s a glittering paperweight, and an entire copy of Station Eleven still exists. Culture didn’t collapse, didn’t fade away. Survival is insufficient. This though, this is enough.
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