{"product_id":"this-censustaker-9781101967324","title":"This Census-Taker","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor readers of George Saunders  Kelly Link  David Mitchell  and Karen Russell  This Census-Taker is a stunning  uncanny  and profoundly moving novella from multiple-award-winning and bestselling author China Miville.  NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR  In a remote house on a hilltop  a lonely boy witnesses a profoundly traumatic event. He triesand failsto flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent  he dreams of safety  of joining the other children in the town below  of escape.  When at last a stranger knocks at his door  the boy senses that his days of isolation might be over.  But by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? What is the purpose behind his questions? Is he friend? Enemy? Or something else altogether?  Filled with beauty  terror  and strangeness  This Census-Taker is a poignant and riveting exploration of memory and identity.  Praise for This Census-Taker  China Miville is a magician . . . who can both blow your mind with ideas as big as the universe and break your heart with language so precise and polished  its like hes writing with diamonds.NPR  The book haunts the reader; what actually happened seems always just out of reach  glimpsed in shadow as it rounds a corner ahead of our vision.Los Angeles Review of Books  Mievilles been compared to Karen Russell and George Saunders  and rightfully so.The Huffington Post  Marvellous.The Guardian  Lingers in the mind like an unsettling dream.Financial Times  A thought-provoking fairy tale for adults . . . This Census-Taker resembles the narrative style  quirkiness  and plotting found in the works of Karen Russell  Aimee Bender  or Steven Millhauser.Booklist  Brief and dreamlike . . . a deceptively simple story whose plot could be taken as a symbolic representation of an aspect of humanity as big as an entire society and as small as a single soul.Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45648331604021,"sku":"ByrdShop_1101967323","price":29.16,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781101967324.jpg?v=1781716023","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/this-censustaker-9781101967324","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}