From a stunning new literary voice comes a brilliant debut novel that created an international auction frenzy, with sales in twenty-seven countries to date, about a young girl growing up in extraordinary times.
 
On a seemingly ordinary Saturday morning, Julia and her family wake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. Set against this threat to normal life, The Age of Miracles maps the effects of catastrophes big and small on the lives of ordinary people, and in particular, one young girl. Extraordinary for its original concept, unforgettable characters, and the grace, elegance and beauty of Karen Thompson Walker's prose, The Age of Miracles is a mesmerizing story of family turmoil, young love, and coming-of-age set against an upending of life as we know it.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

FINALIST - Goodreads Choice Awards 2012
Amazon.com - Best 100 Books of 2012
Amazon.ca - Best 100 Books of 2012


“The novel's wondrous momentum rolls on with the insistence of the restless surf that swallows the beachfront homes; you can't stop reading if you try. Walker refuses easy solutions, instead offering up the revolutionary and bittersweet idea that stolen moments can give any life meaning: a few hours learning to ride a skateboard; running on the beach with a boy you're half in love with; the cool, sweet taste of the last grape you ever eat. Miracles do happen, she seems to say. You just have to know where to look.”
—Kansas City Star

“In Walker’s stunning debut, a young California girl coming of age in a dystopian future confronts the inevitability of change on the most personal level as life on earth withers. . . . Walker captures each moment, intimate and universal, with magical precision. Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving.”
—Kirkus (starred review)

“You open the cover of Miracles and read the first page, and then the second, and when next you look up, the day has fallen away and everyone else has gone off to bed and your legs have stiffened beneath the table.”
—Edmonton Journal
 
“Her voice turns what might have been just a clever mash-up of disaster epic with sensitive young-adult, coming-of-age story into a genuinely moving tale that mixes the real and surreal, the ordinary and the extraordinary with impressive fluency and flair.”
—The New York Times
 
“Touching and harrowing, but above all magical, The Age of Miracles is an impressive debut. And there can be no better time to experience it than during the long (but reassuringly shortening) days of summer.”
—The Globe and Mail
 
“The Age of Miracles is a gentle reminder of what adolescents learn and adults try to forget—that the world is alarmingly mysterious and that the talismans of modernity are no defence against the ‘unimagined, unprepared for miracles or calamities of love and loss.’”
—The Daily Telegraph
 
“The Age of Miracles is dazzling and powerful. It’s a fundamentally human, utterly realistic novel not of a disaster, but of lives lived in the face of disaster.”
—National Post
 
“. . . one of the major themes of The Age of Miracles is as surreal—and intriguing—as a Salvador Dali painting.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

KAREN THOMPSON WALKER holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University and is an editor of fiction and non-fiction at Simon & Schuster. The Age of Miracles is her first book.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page