The Consolation of Maps

Arresting and beautiful, THE CONSOLATION OF MAPS tells a story of ill-fated passion. Theodora Appel runs a company that is more like a family. When young Kenji Tanabe moves from Tokyo to Washington, he's initiated into her rarefied world of antiquarian cartography. But Theodora - brilliantly successful, beguilingly secretive - has another obsession. It is in Florence, where past clashes with present and even love has a price, that her impossible dream will threaten them all.

“Austere and elusive . . . lithe, controlled narrative . . . Bourke has created a novel that, like the complex objects - at once historical yet aesthetic - from which it takes its name, repays effort and attention - Irish TimesAustere and elusive . . . lithe, controlled narrative . . . Bourke has created a novel that, like the complex objects - at once historical yet aesthetic - from which it takes its name, repays effort and attention - Irish TimesA delicately compelling debut . . . Bourke captures how the contours of love and loss can run deep, to devastating effect - Wiltshire LivingThis is a book that enables the reader to enter a different world . . . but through its pages also helps us to understand where great loss can take us - Gazette & HeraldDizzying . . . the ending is shattering in this world of grace and beauty - Geolounge”

Austere and elusive . . . lithe, controlled narrative . . . Bourke has created a novel that, like the complex objects - at once historical yet aesthetic - from which it takes its name, repays effort and attention - Irish Times

Austere and elusive . . . lithe, controlled narrative . . . Bourke has created a novel that, like the complex objects - at once historical yet aesthetic - from which it takes its name, repays effort and attention - Irish Times

A delicately compelling debut . . . Bourke captures how the contours of love and loss can run deep, to devastating effect - Wiltshire Living

This is a book that enables the reader to enter a different world . . . but through its pages also helps us to understand where great loss can take us - Gazette & Herald

Dizzying . . . the ending is shattering in this world of grace and beauty - Geolounge

Thomas Bourke was born in Ireland and lives in Italy. A graduate of University College Dublin, he is author of a book on relations between Europe and Japan. The Consolation of Maps is his first novel.

Arresting and beautiful, THE CONSOLATION OF MAPS tells a story of ill-fated passion. Theodora Appel runs a company that is more like a family. When young Kenji Tanabe moves from Tokyo to Washington, he's initiated into her rarefied world of antiquarian cartography. But Theodora - brilliantly successful, beguilingly secretive - has another obsession. It is in Florence, where past clashes with present and even love has a price, that her impossible dream will threaten them all.

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