Station Eleven
A Novel (National Book Award Finalist)
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4.2 • 3.3K Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
This Anniversary Edition of Station Eleven, a finalist for the National Book Award and named a Best Book of the Twenty-First Century by the New York Times, celebrates ten years of this now iconic novel with a new color illustration and a guide to “The Mandelverse”
A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days following civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
It is fifteen years after a flu pandemic wiped out most of the world's population. Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony, a small troupe moving over the gutted landscape, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. But when they arrive in the outpost of St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave. Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the disaster brought everyone here, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty, telling a story about the relationships that sustain us.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Art still has its place in the postapocalyptic world revealed in Emily St. John Mandel’s best-selling novel. Two decades after an airborne virus wiped out most of the world’s population, actress Kirsten traverses the Great Lakes region as part of a wandering band of performers bringing Shakespeare and classical music to disconnected communities of survivors. St. John Mandel bounces back and forth through time, showing Kirsten’s world before and after the pandemic and painting a deeply moving portrait of just how vital creativity is to human beings. Her writing is startlingly elegant, and the interwoven stories of the book’s characters—who yearn for long-gone comforts like TV sitcoms, airplanes, and the Internet—seem splendidly and heartbreakingly real. A thoughtful, non-sensationalistic treatment of life during and after a global catastrophe, Station Eleven reminds us that even in the worst-case scenario, the show must go on.
Customer Reviews
A Beautifully Woven Post Apocalyptic Mosaic
It’s honestly disturbing how a book published in 2014 can feel like a parallel universe of what happened to us in 2020. While reading Station Eleven, I kept thinking about lockdowns, empty streets, fear, and how closely its pandemic world echoes our own reality. It made me question whether this story is fiction, or a mirror of what almost happened to us.
Beyond that eerie familiarity, the writing is clean, vivid, and incredibly easy to follow. The characters feel fully alive as you move through multiple timelines and intersecting plots across a long arc of time. The story holds attention from start to finish, and the way everything connects is genuinely impressive.
I’m giving it a 4/5 only because this genre isn’t usually my favorite, but the execution is excellent. This is easily one of the best books I’ve read this year, and absolutely worth reading.
Exceptional
Not at all what I expected in the BEST way possible.
Cannot Recommend Enough
Truly a stunning read. It left me speechless several times. The gravity and profoundness many moments and perspectives within this book will stay with me for a long time to come, I’d say.