IN
Alex Garland is the author of the bestselling generational classic The Beach (which was adapted into a major motion pictures starring Leonardo DiCaprio) and of The Tesseract, a national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book. He also wrote the original screenplay of the critically acclaimed film 28 Days Later.
"A book that moves with the kind of speed and grace many older
writers can only day-dream about. The Beach is ambitious,
propulsive fiction." --The Washington Post
“What makes The Beach a truly awesome piece of work is
Garland’s understated, assured depiction of the perils of
pop." --The Village Voice
“The Beach will astonish readers... Not since reading
Donna Tartt’s The Secret History has this reader been so
impressed and taken with a first novel.” --USA Today
“The Beach is an awesome first novel that works as an
adventure story, an allegory and an explanation for why every human
since Adam and Eve has an irresistible impulse to create a perfect
world and destroy it. A wonderful adventure and allegory that
may be the best novel written by anyone currently younger than
30.” --Sunday Oregonian
“Alex Garland... has a clear, engaging storytelling style and a
vivid imagination. Deftly, he uses real-life travel
details--smells, optical effects, quirks of language, social
rituals--to keep the reader’s disbelief at bay.” --The
New York Times Book Review
“Remarkable.... astonishingly assured.... The Beach is
distinguished by Garland’s bracingly transparent prose and tells a
classic story of generational envy and displacement.
A luminous voyage into the dark side of humanity’s
increasingly tenuous dreams of paradise.” --Salon
“Generation X meets Lord of the Flies in this ripping
good adventure yarn...Garland shows a precociously sure hand in
this taut, exotic thriller. For a young author, he knows too
well the peril of finding paradise on earth...a skillful first
novel about the demise of an earthly paradise.” --People
“[G]ripping, intelligent and written with a discipline many young
writers only grow into." --New York Newsday
“The Beach makes for a relevant and fascinating read....an
excellent critique of the backpacker phenomenon--its nouveau
colonialism and its tragically misdirected idealism.” --Time
Out
“Garland’s provocative style--somewhere between Joseph Conrad, Bret
Easton Ellis, and Stephen King--creates a modern-day Eden where
Nintendo Game-boy, "Apocalypse Now," and a drug-trafficking Thai
militia blend seamlessly into the
landscape.” --Vogue
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |