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Sign up todayThe Invention of Everything Else
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Learn moreThe Invention of Everything Else is a luminous imagining of an unlikely friendship between the eccentric inventor, Nikola Tesla, and a young hotel chambermaid, Louisa, who is obsessed with radio dramas and the secret lives of the hotel guests. Louisa first catches sight of the hotel’s most famous resident on New Year’s Day, 1943, and is determined to befriend the strange man. As they share their mutual affinity for pigeons, Louisa begins to piece together Tesla’s extraordinary story of life as an immigrant and visionary genius. Meanwhile, faced with her father’s imminent departure in a time machine, as well as the unsettling arrival of Arthur, a mysterious mechanic (perhaps from the future), Louisa begins to suspect that she has understood something about the relationship of love and invention that Tesla, for all his brilliance, never did.
Samantha Hunt is an author whose novel about Nikola Tesla, The Invention of Everything Else, was a finalist for the Orange Prize and winner of the Bard Fiction Prize. Her first novel, The Seas, earned her selection as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35.” Her novel, Mr. Splitfoot, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a Paris Review Staff Pick. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, McSweeney’s, Tin House, A Public Space, and many other publications.
Marguerite Gavin has recorded over three hundred audiobooks in numerous genres. Her work has won AudioFile Earphones and Publishers Weekly Listen-Up awards as well as a nomination for the prestigious Audie award. AudioFile magazine says "Marguerite Gavin is an accomplished storyteller . . . with a sonorous voice, rich and full of emotion, she easily delivers wry humor and moves smoothly from accent to accent, recalling multiple characters perfectly." Gavin divides her time as an actress between the sound studio and classical theater. She lives in the Washington, DC area.
Reviews
“Hunt had her heart in the right place with this book…her highest concerns are with wonder and love, with questions of survival.”
“Lucky for us that Samantha Hunt, in her highly imaginative second novel…is as obsessed as a writer can be about Tesla. We’re made aware of this in the book’s stunning opening pages, which take off in a voice finely crafted to carry Hunt’s history-steeped tale.”
“Whimsical…offers surprising depth…Gavin delivers both characters with seamless transitions, not to mention charm.”
“Peppered with literary quotations, historical figures, and subtle eroticism, this book will please readers who enjoy experimentation and uncertainty in both their fiction choices and their worldview. Recommended.”
“Oddly charming and pleasantly peculiar, Hunt’s novel offers a unique perspective on hope and imagining life’s possibilities.”
“There’s much food for thought here and some very beautiful prose.”
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