The Humans - Hardcover

4.08

123,574 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0857868756 ISBN 13: 9780857868756

Publisher: Canongate Books

The bestselling, award-winning author of The Radleys is back with what may be his best, funniest, and most devastating dark comedy yet. When an extraterrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at

Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry back home to the utopian world of his own planet, where everyone enjoys immortality and infinite knowledge.

He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, and their capacity for murder and war, and he is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this weird species than he has been led to believe. Disguised as Martin, he drinks wine, reads poetry, and develops an ear for rock music and a taste for peanut butter. Slowly, unexpectedly, he forges bonds with Martin’s family, and in picking up the pieces of the professor’s shattered personal life, he begins to see hope and beauty in the humans’ imperfections and to question the mission that brought him here.

Praised by The New York Times as a “novelist of great seriousness and talent,” Matt Haig delivers an unlikely story about human nature and the joy found in the messiness of life on Earth. The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable tale that playfully and movingly explores the ultimate subject—ourselves.

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About the Author:

MATT HAIG suffered a breakdown in his early twenties. After battling depression for a long time he turned to writing, and he now believes that reading and writing books saved his life. His novels include the bestsellers The Last Family in England, The Radleys and The Humans, which in Canada was a Costco Buyer’s Pick and has sold approximately 15,000 copies. His books have been translated into thirty languages. All his novels for adults have been optioned for film. Matt lives in York with his wife and their two children.

Review:

“Funny, poignant, and full of heart.” (Entertainment Weekly)

“A wonderfully funny, gripping and inventive novel.” (The Times (UK))

“A masterpiece. . . . Matt Haig is a supreme talent and a writer to cherish, and The Humans is undoubtedly his magnum opus.” (The Guardian)

“A brilliant exploration of what it is to love, and to be human, The Humans is both heartwarming and hilarious, weird, and utterly wonderful. One of the best books I’ve read in a very long time.” (S.J. Watson New York Times bestselling author of Before I go to Sleep)

“Funny, clever and quite, quite lovely.” (Sunday Times (London))

“Extraordinary.” (Independent (UK))

“An absolute corker of a novel: very clever, and very moving, and that rare and precious thing -laugh-out-loud funny.” (Daily Mail (UK))

“Matt Haig is a novelist of stunning talent, with a laser eye for the absurd and endless reserves of compassion. (Parade Picks)” (Parade)

“A thought-provoking, compulsively readable delight.” (Booklist (starred review))

“Delightful.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))

“Quick-paced, touching, and hilarious.” (Library Journal (starred review))

“Matt Haig has an empathy for the human condition, the light and the dark of it, and he uses the full palette to build his excellent stories.” (Neil Gaiman, author of Coraline)