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Great Circle

Great Circle

The soaring and emotional novel shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021

Summary

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**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021**

**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022**

I WAS BORN TO BE A WANDERER

From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship; to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots looping and diving over the rugged forests of her childhood, to the thrill of flying Spitfires during the war, the life of Marian Graves has always been marked by a lust for freedom and danger.

In 1950, she embarks on her life's dream - to fly a Great Circle around the globe, pole to pole. But after a crash landing she finds herself stranded on the Antarctic ice without enough fuel. With one fearsome piece of water separating her from completion of the Circle, she writes one last entry in her logbook.

She is ready for her final journey.

Half a century later, Hadley Baxter, a brilliant, troubled Hollywood starlet is irresistibly drawn to play Marian Graves, a role that will lead her to probe the deepest mysteries of the vanished pilot's life.

GREAT CIRCLE is an enthralling journey over oceans and continents and a drama of exhilarating power. Combining unforgettable characters and thrilling suspense, it is a sweeping story of loss and obsession, sacrifice and survival, of the unknowable mysteries of freedom, love and life itself.

Praise for Maggie Shipstead, New York Times bestseller and winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and LA Times First Fiction Prize:

'Outrageously gifted' RICHARD RUSSO
'Ferociously clever' GUARDIAN
''Graceful and dazzling' MARIA SEMPLE
'Joyously good' DAILY MAIL
'impressive' JEFFREY EUGENIDES

© Maggie Shipstead 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Reviews

  • Luminous, masterful ... glides seamlessly through the 20th century immersing the reader. Tremendously well-written
    TELEGRAPH, 'Best Fiction of 2021'

About the author

Maggie Shipstead

MAGGIE SHIPSTEAD is the author of the New York Times bestselling novels SEATING ARRANGEMENTS - winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and L A Times Book Prize for First Fiction - ASTONISH ME and the Booker-shortlisted GREAT CIRCLE. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Guardian, Conde Nast Traveller, The Best American Short Stories and elsewhere. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. YOU HAVE A FRIEND IN 10A is her first story collection. Maggie Shipstead grew up in California and lives in Los Angeles, California. Find her @MaggieShipstead and on www.MaggieShipstead.com
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