{"product_id":"silk-by-alessandro-baricco","title":"'Silk' by Alessandro Baricco","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"98\" data-end=\"721\"\u003eA very slim, highly stylised novel set in nineteenth-century Europe and Japan, \u003cem data-start=\"177\" data-end=\"183\"\u003eSilk\u003c\/em\u003e follows Hervé Joncour, a French silkworm trader who travels repeatedly to Japan in search of healthy eggs during a period of disease and political instability.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"98\" data-end=\"721\"\u003eOn paper, almost nothing happens: journeys, transactions, a marriage, an obsession. But Baricco turns that spareness into the whole atmosphere of the book. It reads less like a conventional historical novel than a controlled reverie about distance, erotic projection, repetition, and the strange way desire attaches itself to what cannot quite be possessed or even fully known.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"723\" data-end=\"1063\"\u003eIts appeal is partly formal. The prose is pared back, rhythmic, faintly fable-like, and the book has long had crossover life as the sort of literary novella people read for both content and mood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"723\" data-end=\"1063\"\u003eGood for the Fitzroy pool, sunshine abundant.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44259617439827,"sku":null,"price":9.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Untitleddesign-2026-03-20T135540.516.png?v=1773975361","url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/products\/silk-by-alessandro-baricco","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}