Paradise News

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 294. Blue cloth boards lettered in gilt to spine; pale grey endpapers. Jacket design by Chris Shamwana with illustration by Paul Cox.

A hint of marginal browning, else fine.

Author's ninth novel. A comedic juxtaposition of earthly paradise versus heaven, as a chance encounter throws together an anthropologist and an agnostic theologian on a Hawaiian package tour. Self-described as an "agnostic Catholic", Lodge is best known as an exponent of the campus novel with the trilogy Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984), and Nice Work (1988), principal amongst them. "A wonderfully entertaining – and ultimately touching – introduction to a masterly writer's work." –Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times