Francis Spufford

"New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan island, 1746. One rainy evening in November, a handsome young stranger fresh off the boat arrives at a countinghouse door on Golden Hill Street: this is Mr. Smith, amiable, charming, yet strangely determined to keep suspicion shimmering. For in his pocket, he has what seems to be an order for a thousand pounds, a huge sum, and he won't explain why, or where he comes from, or what he is planning to do...

Francis Spufford's Unapologetic is a wonderfully pugnacious defense of Christianity. Refuting critics such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the "new atheist" crowd, Spufford, a former atheist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, argues that Christianity is recognizable, drawing on the deep and deeply ordinary vocabulary of human feeling, satisfying those who believe in it by offering a ruthlessly realistic account of the grown-up dignity...

Un mystérieux inconnu du nom de Smith débarque un beau jour à New York en 1746. Que vient-il donc faire de l'autre cté de l'Atlantique? Est-il digne de confiance? New York, 1746. Un mystérieux M. Smith débarque d'un bateau. Dès le lendemain, la rumeur est sur toutes les lèvres. Doit-on faire confiance à cet homme si secret? Que vient-il faire de ce cté de l'Atlantique? Les questions agitent toute la ville, dont l'intelligente et acerbe...

Lunchtime on a Saturday, 1944: the Woolworths on Bexford High Street in southeast London receives a delivery of aluminum saucepans. A crowd gathers to see the first new metal in ages—after all, everything’s been melted down for the war effort. An instant later, the crowd is gone; incinerated. Among the shoppers were five young children. Who were they? What futures did they lose? This brilliantly constructed novel lets an alternative reel of time...