Reality and Other Stories

"A smart book, scary as hell, and also a whole lot of fun…[ Reality and Other Stories is] as endlessly entertaining as it is legitimately frightening." ― Michael Schaub, NPR.org "Ingenious…[Lanchester's stories] send a shiver down the spine." ― Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal "John Lanchester's collection of tech-y ghost stories seems especially appealing right now...The eight tales in Lanchester's Reality and Other Stories are meant to entertain, to take you out of yourself for a space―and that they deftly do." ― Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air "This intriguing debut collection grapples with technology and its illusion of convenience, choice and escape. Lanchester, a British novelist and journalist, has a sharp eye for social class and setting in his ghost stories for the digital age." ― Vanessa Hua, New York Times Book Review "Brisk, vinegar-sharp satires that horrify and amuse in equal measure." ― Guardian "A mind-bending collection about the multifaceted scariness of the way we live now." ― Times Literary Supplement (UK) "Very clever, very modern 'entertainments.'" ― Financial Times (UK) "Across these immensely enjoyable and varied tales, Lanchester embraces the camp silliness of the gothic sensibility, while also making astute observations about our ever-developing digital reality." ― Booklist Praise for John Lanchester: "A writer as funny as he is humane." – Keith Gessen "Book by book, John Lanchester proves himself one of our necessary writers, equal in wit, good nature, and fundamental sanity to whatever insane thing the new century throws at us." – Garth Risk Hallberg "John Lanchester writes with such clarity and effectiveness that his prose is a pleasure I always look forward to." – Philip Pullman "All of John Lanchester’s work is of a piece―he wants his readers to see our moment better, and then do something about it." – Kim Stanley Robinson John Lanchester is the author of five novels, including The Debt to Pleasure and Capital . His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages, and he is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books . He lives in London. Read more