The Guide to the Coming Days
Coming soon in English from Amazon Publishing
You’re standing in a bookstore that’s closing in five minutes, and you’re reading the back cover of this book. You’re wondering if the back cover is referring to you. Well, yes, it is. It’s talking about you. And to you.
You’re in a precarious position, my friend. If you turn your attention to the store’s display window and look through it, toward the street, you’ll see someone standing there; someone who has been following you for the past half-hour, at least.
This is just a back cover, and the bookstore, as stated earlier, is about to close. Take this book, buy it, put it in your bag, and head straight home. Don’t look back, but be conscious of the fact that someone is following you.
- First published
- 2014
Reviews
With only his second book, Blum takes his place in the front rank of Israeli speculative-fiction writers.
With a little Hitchcock and a great deal of Walt Disney, The Guide to the Coming Days is a dizzying roller coaster, through which familiar images from popular culture come into view. They are woven in the reader's imagination, but also drawn from memory. […] The novel is indeed written with joie de vivre, and that joy is contagious. Its real ambition—this is a thoroughly ambitious book—lies precisely in its lightness of touch: the unpretentious way it tackles weighty questions such as the creator's status, the role of literature, the emotion called love, and the way popular culture offers us inauthentic thrills and experiences.
Its play with the medium, even if very simple, is executed brilliantly. It reveals itself to the reader slowly, sometimes only after the book is finished and another piece of the puzzle comes to light, making this book exceptional.
Blum's writing is fun—very, very fun. It flows and makes you want to keep reading. There is no suspense in the usual sense of the word, but there are small waves of suspense in every chapter that entice the reader onward. It has been a long time since I enjoyed a new book this much.
International editions
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Russian
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