Novel of the week

21 May 2026, The Tablet

Religion and nature are absences around which life orbits. The large farm is still central to the local economy but locals can name the fields.

WHAT WILL the end of the world look like? Perhaps it will be a modest affair: corn never ripening, clouds never lifting, birdsong falling quiet when the chicks fail to hatch. Society will carry on as before, aware that something seems off, but too absorbed in everyday dramas to pay much attention to the environment. This is the quiet catastrophe imagined in Melissa Harrison’s new novel, The Given World.

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