{"product_id":"9781466814479","title":"Tales of Protection: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFour enthralling tales about chance, by the author of \u003ci\u003ePsalm at Journey's End\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTales of Protection\u003c\/i\u003e is a novel about people in different places in different epochs -- contemporary Norway, nineteenth-century Sweden, and Renaissance Italy -- whose stories are bound together by the author's original and searching inquiry into why things happen the way they do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs the book opens, a dead man lies in his coffin reflecting on the past. Bolt was an eccentric scientist who devoted his old age to a vast research undertaking -- collecting random incidents from the history of the species and finding the underlying pattern that connects them. This kind of hindsight, after all, must be a kind of heaven -- or a kind of hell. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis reveries lead him to tell two other tales -- the tale of a doomed lighthouse keeper on a Swedish island and the tale of rivalry among Renaissance artists -- and finally to tell a startling tale from his own early manhood. All of the tales, in his exquisitely suspenseful narration, demonstrate his theory of \"seriality,\" which is the opposite of causality. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eErik Fosnes Hansen's \u003ci\u003ePsalm at Journey's End \u003c\/i\u003ewas acclaimed as one of the most original works yet about the sinking of the Titanic. In Norway, \u003ci\u003eTales of Protection\u003c\/i\u003e has been called a \"Blixenesque\" masterpiece; it is a major new work of world literature, and a great leap forward for this gifted young writer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47125779480816,"sku":"9781466814479","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781466814479_p0.jpg?v=1769890936","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781466814479","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}