The Stone Loves the World

A Novel

By: Brian Hall

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Jennifer Damon, Emma Galvin, Kaleo Griffith, Saskia Maarleveld

A warm, inventive, and multilayered novel about two families - one made up largely of scientists, and the other of artists and mystics - whose worlds collide in pursuit of a lost daughter

Mette, a twenty-year old programmer of visual effects for video games, lives with her mother, Saskia, an aspiring playwright, in Brooklyn. Mette is a private and socially awkward young woman, who finds something consoling in repetitive mathematical calculations. But she has been recently rejected in love, and feels stuck in an endless loop, no longer certain of her place in the world.

As Brian Hall's new novel opens, Mette has gone missing. Her disappearance forces Saskia to reunite with Mette's father, Mark, an emotionally distant astronomy professor in Ithaca, to embark on a journey together to find her. Mette's path will take her across America and then to a fateful visit with her charismatic grandfather, Thomas, who formerly ran the commune north of Ithaca where Saskia was raised, and who now lives as a hermit in a windmill on a remote Danish island.

Playing out over nine decades and three generations, and stitching together a dazzling array of subjects—from cosmology and classical music to number theory and medieval mystery plays—The Stone Loves the World is a story of love, longing, and scientific wonder. It offers a moving reflection on the human search for truth, meaning, and connection in an often incomprehensible universe, and on the genuine surprises that the real world, and human society, can offer.

Brian Hall should be much more widely read

Beautiful novel with some exceptional readers. Tip of the hat to Mark Bramhall as always. And if you like this, be sure to go back to listen to the Saskiad.

Disappointing

The book is dragging forever with the plot going nowhere for ages. The audio is defective and the reader sounds sleepy. I could not move past dive minutes at a time without feeling bored.
Not recommended.