How to Make a Bomb

A Novel

By: Rupert Thomson

Narrated by: Rupert Thomson

Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

If he suddenly found what surrounded him unbearable, it was because it was artificial
Everything had been designed and manufactured, and he was trapped in it

Philip Notman, an acclaimed historian, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London, and to his wife and son, something unexpected and inexplicable happens to him, and he is unable to settle back into his normal life.

Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to see Inés, a Spanish academic with whom he shared a connection at the conference, but his journey doesn't end there. A chance encounter with a wealthy, elderly couple sends him to a house on the south coast of Crete. Is he thinking of leaving his wife, whom he claims he still loves, or is he trying to change a reality that has become impossible to bear? Is he on a quest for a simpler and more authentic
existence, or is he utterly self-deluded?

As he tries to make sense of both his personal circumstances and the world surrounding him, he finds himself embarking on a course of action that will push him to the very brink of disaster.

©2024 Rupert Thomson (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

'I devoured [this book] in a single sitting. The sense of dislocation – and location – made it seem like a dream of another life, all of it so lyrical and yet narratively acute. A wonderful achievement.' (Jonathan Lethem)

'Masterfully ambiguous … [How to Make a Bomb raises] complicated questions … but doesn’t neatly wrap them up. Rather, it allows the ideological inquiries at the center of the book to linger and bloom for continued consideration … [The book] provides a powerfully evocative catalyst for thought and feeling.' (Matt Bell ― New York Times)

'A novel that turns a midlife crisis inside out, rewardingly...the result, in Thomson's expert hands, is fast-paced and headlong; the book ends up rewiring the reader's sense of what's banal and what's not. A work about estrangement and solitude that's surprisingly rapid, engaging, light-footed.' (Kirkus Reviews)