Cloud Atlas

A modern classic, a monumental masterpiece, which, like many other books by Mitchell, made the Booker Prize shortlist. In 2012, the novel was adapted for film by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis (starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Ben Whishaw, Hugo Weaving, Susan Sarandon). With a budget of over $100 million, it became the most expensive independent film in cinema history.

“Cloud Atlas” is like a mirror maze where six voices echo one another as they overlap and layer on top of each other: a notary from the mid-nineteenth century returning to the United States from Australia; a young composer forced to trade away soul and body in Europe between the world wars; a female journalist in 1970s California uncovering a corporate conspiracy; a small-time publisher—our contemporary—who somehow managed to pull off a coup with the gangster autobiography “Punch in the Face” and fled from his creditors; a fast-food enterprise housekeeper clone in Korea, the land of triumphant cyberpunk; and a Hawaiian goatherd at the twilight of civilization.