Probably the best book I've read so far this year. McCann's previous novel "Let The Great World Spin" was a fantastic novel set in New York in 1974, on the day Philippe Petit walked a tightrope between the just-built Twin Towers. It won the National Book Award, and the Dublin IMPAC Prize. McCann has again taken real historical events and real characters, and woven imaginary events and characters into a highly dramatic narrative, with numerous interlinked strands. We read about Alcock and Brown as they make the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic in 1919; Frederick Douglass, the American slave who toured Ireland in 1845 to champion ideas of freedom and democracy; and US senator George Mitchell as he negotiates the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which brought peace to Belfast. McCann brilliantly connects these times and characters in a compelling story written in distinctive, deeply affecting prose. A brilliant, brilliant novel.