The Nautilus, a strange building shaped like the chambered shell of the same name, was built in South London in the early 1930s. Designed on Modernist and Utopian principles, it was a haven for a floating community of cosmopolitan refugees, intellectuals and artists.
Now, at the end of the century, only two of the original inhabitants still occupy their chambers – Celeste Zylberstein, joint architect with her late husband of the Nautilus, and Francis Campion, an elderly poet. Gus Crabb, a dealer in bric-a-brac, is the only other resident until, to the Nautilus, like a hermit crab seeking a home, comes Rowena Snow. Of Indian/Scottish parentage, orphaned, without family or friends, Rowena is in search of her own Utopia – or the Heligoland of her childhood imagination.
Shorlisted for the Orange Prize for fiction and the Whitbread Novel Award.
Anne Donovan
Shena Mackay
Donna Tartt
Zadie Smith
Carol Shields
Valerie Martin
Crystal E. Wilkinson
Louise Welsh
Donna Tartt
Zadie Smith
Carol Shields
Alice Sebold
Julie Otsuka
Edna O'Brien
Valerie Martin
Shena Mackay
Haven Kimmel
Nora Okja Keller
Liz Jensen
Siri Hustvedt
Sonya Hartnett
Lucy Ellmann
Anne Donovan
Janet Davey
Sandra Cisneros
Bella Bathurst
Barbara Kingsolver
Ruth Ozeki
Susanna Clarke
Maggie O'Farrell
Tayari Jones
Kamila Shamsie
Naomi Alderman
Lisa McInerney
Ali Smith
Eimear McBride
A.M. Homes
Madeline Miller
Téa Obreht
Barbara Kingsolver
Marilynne Robinson
Rose Tremain
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Lionel Shriver
Andrea Levy
Valerie Martin
Ann Patchett
Kate Grenville
Linda Grant
Suzanne Berne
Carol Shields
Anne Michaels
Helen Dunmore
Tune into host Vick Hope and a line-up of incredible guests on our weekly podcast full of unmissable book recommendations.
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