The Wake

"Paul Kingsnorth set out to write a long book about England during and after the Norman invasion of 1066 and to do it in a kind of invented mishmash of ancient words reset in modern syntax, though with odd spellings and very little punctuation. Or capital letters. It’s crazy, but Kingsnorth did not fail in his aim. He has brought to life a drunken, wife-beating, occasionally noble, possibly psychotic and completely bloodthirsty hero, given unto him a guerrilla force of farmers turned soldiers, and let him loose in what is essentially a post-apocalyptic world nearly 1,000 years old."

"I keep giving this book to people, but no one ever thanks me."