Benjamin Markovits Books

An unforgettable novel about basketball and race, friendship and envy, and the powerful divide that separates greatness from ordinary life.

Douglas Pitt is a man obsessed. His quest is to prove that the 18th-century inventor Samuel Highgate Syme discovered the theory of continental drift. Laughed at and dismissed at every turn, Pitt's luck changes when he discovers a contemporary manuscript written by a scientist, Friedrich Muller, which recounts a year in the company of the irrepressible Syme. Perhaps this will finally reveal his genius...

Nineteen-year -old Annabella Milbanke, visiting London for the swirl of parties and engagements of the season, is introduced to Byron at a waltz. Caught up in a potentially scandalous love triangle, Annabella must decide whether following her heart is the most dangerous thing she has ever done .

Set against the backdrop of Texas, this coming-of-age story offers a heartfelt exploration of feeling out of place and finding one's identity. With a narrative that resonates with young readers, it provides comfort and relatability to those navigating their own challenges. The book promises to engage fans of acclaimed authors like Kevin Henkes, Rebecca Stead, and Kate DiCamillo, making it a compelling choice for middle-grade readers seeking connection and understanding in their journey.

Ten years out of Yale and drifting through a teaching career, Greg Marnier heads for his college reunion, jetlagged and drunk. Soon, the realities of life on America's urban frontier become all too apparent .

'The young American writer Benjamin Markovits has established himself as a formidable voice ... grandiose, vaunting, impressive ... the bastard son of Philip Roth and A.S.Byatt.' Jonathan Headwood, New Statesman Benjamin Markovits' second novel takes place over the course of one year, shifting between uptown Manhattan and a private highschool campus in Riverdale. Either Side of Winter moves through a series of linked events and characters, season-by-season, in that richest of city-scapes. In Fall we see the tentative beginnings of an unlikely romance between new schoolteacher Amy Bostick and a wealthy, drifting former graduate, Charles Conway. In Winter we hear the story of her colleague Howard Peasbody, whose brief fling with college mate Annie Rosenblum, produced, as he now learns, seventeen years too late, a daughter Francesca the best friend of Rachel Krantz, whose relationships with her literature teacher, Stuart Englander, and her dying father Reuben, take us through Spring and Summer. Executed with exquisite sympathy, tenderness and emotional nuance, the four parts of Either Side of Winter come together to form a moving and elegiac picture of people whose lives are inextricably linked by circumstance, community and a need to be loved. Touched by wry humour and the shades of Manhattan moods as we pass through the year, its achievement is to capture the city in microcosm through a series of remarkable portraits.

A Luminous family saga from one of Granta's Best Young British NovelistsWhen the four Essinger children gather in Austin for Christmas, they all bring their news. But their parents have plans, too, and Liesel, the materfamilias, has invited Dana and Cal to stay, hoping to bring them back together.

Fresh out of college and uncertain how to proceed with life, the narrator of Ben Markovits' Playing Days finds himself drifting towards a career that once obsessed his father - professional basketball. It's an odd, isolated existence, punctuated by the intense excitement - and often intense... číst celé

Paul is a mid-ranking tennis professional on the ATP tour. But Paul's parents and siblings have come to stay in the build-up to the US Open, and with summer storms brewing, several generations of domestic tension are brought to boiling point .

Three years after Lord Byron dismissed him from his service, Dr John Polidori has fallen on hard times. As the pair fall in love, Polidori knows that he can only emerge from Byron's shadow if he confesses his true identity to the deluded girl; but was it only Byron's shadow that led her to love him in the first place?