Night Train to Lisbon - Tapa blanda

This title is now a major film. Pascal Mercier's haunting novel of the paths not taken, the choices not made, the lives not lived, "Night Train to Lisbon" has captured the hearts of readers across Europe, with over two million copies sold worldwide. "Night Train to Lisbon" follows Raimund Gregorius, a 57-year-old Classics scholar, on a journey that takes him across Europe. Abandoning his job and his life and travelling with a dusty old book as his talisman, he heads for Lisbon in search of clues to the life of the book's Portuguese author, Amadeu de Prado. As he gets swept up in his quest, he finds that the journey is also one of self-discovery, as he re-encounters all the decisions he has made - and not made - in his life, and faces the roads not travelled. It is suitable for fans of the film, readers of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's "Shadow of the Wind", Nicole Krauss' "The History of Love", or Isabelle Allende's "The House of Spirits".

Pascal Mercier was born in 1944 in Bern, Switzerland, and currently lives in Berlin, where he is a professor of philosophy. Night Train to Lisbon is his third novel, but his first that has been translated into English.