Reservoir 13: Winner of The 2017 Costa Novel Award

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Quite unlike anything I have read before. McGregor writes with rare elegance and integrity. If people were not already aware that here is one of our most accomplished living writers, they certainly will be now." -- Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor — Lonesome Reader Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor — Lonesome Reader

Gradually, in painstakingly accumulated detail, the reader becomes familiar with the villagers as if he or she lived among them: their shifting allegiances, their small sorrows and disappointments, the efforts they make to put on a brave face to their neighbours. Peak District Walks have their own charity patches raising funds forthe 'Peak District Mountain Rescue Organisation' (charity no. 506681) -supporting the seven Mountain Rescue Teams in the Peak District. One of the shorter hikes on the list, but since Higher Shelf Stones summit is the third highest point in the Peak District I felt it had to be on the list! The great thing about this walk is that you begin from Snake Pass so for the first part of the hike you don’t have too much ascent.There’s barely a blink when Dr Finch hears the news about Hayley’s corpse being discovered on his car radio. He glances over at his wife but remains inscrutable. Later, when James Hollis phones him to warn about the police interest in the four of them, he stays unruffled and feigns total neutrality. “Ola!” he answers, jokily. Had he heard about the Hayley Reid case? Yes, “very sad,” he declares it. “Jamie sends his love,” he tells his wife upon hanging up the phone. “He’s very well, he’s just trying to arrange a get-together, the four amigos.” A decades-honed talent, Tim tells lies like he’s breathing air. Jon McGregor's Reservoir 13 [is] filled with things I wish I'd written; not mere cleverness, but cool and capacious intelligence." -- Teju Cole, Faber Social

Reservoir 13 | The Booker Prizes

People in villages- and cities - all over the world - go on with their daily routines: feed animals ...get married.. break up... have drinks at the local pub... have Christmas parties... go to social dances... kids go to school.. The book is considered a mystery of sorts as it starts with a 13 year old girl going missing when vacationing in an English village with her family. The author describes the continuation of life as the seasons change with the village events of one year for each of the books chapters.

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Group therapy is an intriguing choice of subject matter. As participants are urged to choose smiley or unhappy emojis to describe their week, and dancers arrive to encourage expression through movement, the whole narrative feels poised between scepticism, impatience and admiration. Robert walks out twice. But the novel holds us there in the room. It’s in these sessions that we come closest to the kind of collective voice that McGregor has explored in previous novels – in the shared narration of the troubled, vociferous, unheard addicts of Even the Dogs, rising between them like a Greek chorus, and in the passive, impersonal recording of the whole village in Reservoir 13. Now the strenuously made words of the group members float together on a common stream of effort. Everyone has an idea, an opinion about the girl, often shared in the Gladstone, the local pub. People report sightings. Reservoir 13 is quite extraordinary--the way it's structured, the way it rolls, the skill with which Jon McGregor lets the characters breathe and age. It's like watching more than a decade of living from a slow-moving train." -- Roddy Doyle, Man Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor — the hills are alive Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor — the hills are alive

They'd lost a ewe while he'd been gone. There was a meeting of the parish council. Brian Fletcher had difficulty keeping people to the agenda.. Common Scoter (Off Victoria esplanade SE MC), 2 Arctic Tern (Off Victoria esplanade MC , 1 SE ), Red-throated Diver (Off Victoria esplanade MC SE ), 3 Lesser Redpoll (Feldy view cemetery MC DU SB ) Even while absorbed in their own lives, the village can never completely forget what happened on that one night so many years ago. Periodically McGregor reminds us of the girl’s disappearance, even in the final chapter some 13 years after her disappearance we are told: Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? At midnight when the year turned there were fireworks on the television in the pub and dancing in the street outside.

I’ve never read such an extraordinary novel with such insight into the cycles of life of peoples lives and nature’s beauty. Everyone and everything is observed with such exceptional detailed prose. McGregor writes about the landscape, birds, plants, and wildlife through life and death. His unusual structure keeps running on so wonderfully. Time goes on. Life moves on one year to the next. Each year the missing girl is still not found. Each chapter brings us to a different reservoir and gets us closer to Reservoir 13 with a feeling of unease as the book progresses.