The Book of Science and Antiquities

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by Thomas Keneally


  “Will it dissolve it? The rock I’ve swallowed?” I ask. It is an extremely pressing question. The biggest question. Does Learned want it back?

  The fluid that now enters me stuns to silence the debate I’m having with myself.

  “I’ve stopped arguing,” I tell the air about my room, the new one. The one to do with hope of some sort.

  Learned Man Returns to His Lake

  SOME MONTHS AFTER the death of Shelby Apple, the tribes whose traditional lands abutted Lake Learned returned their ancient hero, Learned Man, to his country in a wooden casket. The joy was visible in the faces of the elders.

  A keen wind ran across Lake Learned that day. Peter Jorgensen, who was invited, thought that in Learned Man’s day it would have shivered the surface of the water. It rustled the saltbush in a way that almost imitated the old lake as Jorgensen knew it had once been. He told the press that it was a day of immense history, but also a beginning.

  “Learned Man,” he said, “has not yet finished speaking to us all.”

  More from the Author

  The Power Game

  The Unmourned

  The Soldier's Curse

  Crimes of the Father

  Napoleon's Last Island

  Shame and the Captives

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THOMAS KENEALLY began his writing career in 1964 and has published thirty-seven novels since, most recently Crimes of the Father, Napoleon’s Last Island, Shame and the Captives, and the New York Times bestselling The Daughters of Mars. His novels include Schindler’s List, which won the Booker Prize in 1982; The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith; Gossip from the Forest; and Confederates, all of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney, Australia.

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  ALSO BY THOMAS KENEALLY

  FICTION

  The Place at Whitton

  The Fear

  Bring Larks and Heroes

  Three Cheers for the Paraclete

  The Survivor

  A Dutiful Daughter

  The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

  Blood Red, Sister Rose

  Gossip from the Forest

  Season in Purgatory

  A Victim of the Aurora

  Passenger

  Confederates

  The Cut-rate Kingdom

  Schindler’s Ark

  A Family Madness

  The Playmaker

  Towards Asmara

  By the Line

  Flying Hero Class

  Woman of the Inner Sea

  Jacko

  A River Town

  Bettany’s Book

  An Angel in Australia

  The Tyrant’s Novel

  The Widow and Her Hero

  The People’s Train

  The Daughters of Mars

  Shame and the Captives

  Napoleon’s Last Island

  Crimes of the Father

  NONFICTION

  Outback

  The Place Where Souls Are Born

  Now and in Time to Be: Ireland and the Irish

  Memoirs from a Young Republic

  Homebush Boy: A Memoir

  The Great Shame

  American Scoundrel

  Lincoln

  The Commonwealth of Thieves

  Searching for Schindler

  Three Famines

  Australians (vols. I, II, and III)

  A Country Too Far (ed. with Rosie Scott)

  Australians: A Short History

  FOR CHILDREN

  Ned Kelly and the City of Bees

  Roos in Shoes

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by The Serpentine Publishing Company

  Originally published in Australia in 2018 by Penguin Random House Australia

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Atria Books hardcover edition December 2019

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  Interior design by Kyoko Watanabe

  Jacket design by James Iacobelli

  Jacket illustration by Ivana Sepa

  Author photograph © Newspix via Getty Images

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBN 978-1-9821-2103-7

  ISBN 978-1-9821-2105-1 (ebook)

 

 

 


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