SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE BOOKER PRIZE A ROYAL READING ROOM PICK 2023 SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA GOLD CROWN THE NEW YORK TIMES AND TIMES BESTSELLER TIME MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A gripping historical adventure that feels sharp, fresh and modern' STYLIST 'So beautiful, so daring, so complete' TAYLOR JENKINS REID 'A masterpiece' NIGELLA LAWSON 'Luminous, masterful. Glides seamlessly through the 20th century, immersing the reader' TELEGRAPH, Best Fiction of 2021 'How deeply we care about each of these people. Extraordinary' NEW YORK TIMES 'Wonderful. Memorable characters and vivid storytelling' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING MAGAZINE 'A tour-de-force' DAILY EXPRESS A soaring, breathtakingly ambitious novel that weaves together the astonishing lives of a 1950s vanished female aviator and the modern-day Hollywood actress who plays her on screen. _______________________ From her days as a wild child in prohibition America to the blitz and glitz of wartime London, from the rugged shores of New Zealand to a lonely iceshelf in Antarctica, Marian Graves is driven by a need for freedom and danger. Determined to live an independent life, she resists the pull of her childhood sweetheart, and burns her way through a suite of glamorous lovers. But it is an obsession with flight that consumes her most. Now, as she is about to fulfil her greatest ambition, to circumnavigate the globe from pole to pole, Marian crash lands in a perilous wilderness of ice. Over half a century later, troubled film star Hadley Baxter is drawn inexorably to play the enigmatic pilot on screen. It is a role that will lead her to an unexpected discovery, throwing fresh and spellbinding light on the story of the unknowable Marian Graves. _________________________________________ 'Extraordinary' NEW YORK TIMES 'Full of adventure, passion and tragedy' THE TIMES 'Soars from the very first page' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'Luminous, masterful. Glides seamlessly through 20th century history' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Breathtaking' OBSERVER 'Impressive and gripping' SUNDAY TIMES 'Surprising and moving at every turn' GUARDIAN 'Audacious and Immersive' DAILY MAIL 'Accomplished and ambitious' FINANCIAL TIMES Readers love GREAT CIRCLE: ***** What a read! Immense story with beautifully created characters ***** A 600 page turner that you are sad to finish ***** The story is so well researched and planned; historical fiction standing side by side with history itself ***** This is a stunning achievement, my perspective feels fundamentally transformed through reading it ***** A wonderful saga, covering a large chunk of the twentieth century

When we started our conversation about Great Circle, everyone agreed that it was an enjoyable read. It's often that the books we pick at NUBClub are challenging or heavy or obtuse, and it was a refreshing change of pace to read something that just flowed forward with style and power while still telling a meaty story. A lot of our discussion was unpacking why Shipstead chose to write so much about both characters. Marian, the pilot in the past, was the clear central character and everyone found her story about her struggles with her found family and her oppressive marriage interesting. We were passionate about our takes on her wartime efforts and in particular her relationship with her long time lover Caleb. We all found Marian to be a troubling but compelling character that we liked discussing and following as she pushed against the boundaries of her misogynist world and defied the expectations of everyone around her. The modern character Hadley was a more controversial character for us -- about half of us liked her narrative of stardom and self-destructive rebellion while others felt it was unnecessary to the story and not sympathetic. However, the more we interrogated these two stories, the more connections we found, particularly around the way both women were trapped in other people's expectations of them and deeply thinking about who had the ability to tell their stories. The central mystery of the story -- what happened to Marian in her world circling flight -- ultimately comes down to what version of her story will win out and the novel asks interesting questions how much control people (and particularly women) have over their lives and the meaning of them. This also gave us a way to incorporate the stories of the secondary characters -- Marian's navigator who comes to his own terms of his experience of being gay in Marian's time, and the gorgeous passages about Marian's righteous moral brother James. We all found James's story touching and powerful, and the metaphor of his drawing of the battles of World War 2 -- rendered as unreadable scribbles when he thought he was making accurate depictions -- became a central symbol of the question of how we understand the past and what true representations of past heroes can possibly be. The more we talked about the book, the more interesting content surfaced around these questions, and by the end of our conversation, we were amazed at the elegance with which Shipstead put it all together. It's a really remarkable book. As a beach read, it's light, engaging, and emotionally moving in beautiful ways, but if you want to go deep with it, there's structure and theme galore to unpack. We tip our hat to you, Maggie Shipstead. Brava.