The Giant, O’Brien

***New York Times Book Review* Notable Book of the Year** ***Los Angeles Times* Best Book of the Year** London, 1782: center of science and commerce, home to the newly rich and the desperately poor. In the midst of it all is the Giant, O’Brien, a freak of nature, a man of song and story who trusts in myths, fairies, miracles, and little people. He has come from Ireland to exhibit his size for money. O’Brien’s opposite is a man of science, the famed anatomist John Hunter, who lusts after the Giant’s corpse as a medical curiosity, a boon to the advancement of scientific knowledge. In her acclaimed novel, two-time Man Booker Prize winning author Hilary Mantel tells of the fated convergence of Ireland and England. As belief wrestles knowledge and science wrestles song, so *The Giant, O’Brien* calls to us from a fork in the road as a tale of time, and a timeless tale.