See also: BOOKS / TRANSLATIONS / RESOURCES
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Overview
Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. When his professional and personal worlds collide, an opportunity presents itself for Beard to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster. Visit Vintage
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Editions
London: Jonathan Cape, 2010.
New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2010. 287 pages.
Amsterdam: Rainbow, 2013. 361 p.
Solaire. Paris: Gallimard, 2012.
Barcelona: Anagrama 2012.
Zürich: Diogenes, 2012.
Selected Reviews and Criticism
'Solar.' Publishers Weekly 257.5 (2010): 36.
Hooper, Brad. 'Solar.' Booklist 106.11 (2010): 7.
Clark, Alex. 'Martin Amis, Ian McEwan: does the golden generation still glitter?' Telegraph, 22 January 2010.
Kerridge, Jake. 'Ian McEwan: Profile.' Telegraph, 19 February 2010.
Anthony, Andrew. 'Ian McEwan: The literary novelist with a popular appeal.' Observer, 28 February 2010.
Adams, David. 'Ian McEwan: Failure at Copenhagen climate talks prompted novel rewrite.' The Guardian, 5 March 2010.
Sutcliffe, William. 'Ian McEwan's Climate-Change Comedy.' Financial Times, 5 March 2010.
Hazra, Indrajit. 'Gauging Ian McEwan.' Hindustan Times, 5 March 2010.
Wroe, Nicholas. 'Ian McEwan: "It's good to get your hands dirty a bit".' The Guardian, 6 March 2010 [McEwan on his new novel Solar; published in print as 'Ian McEwan: A Life in Writing', Guardian Review, 6 March 2010: 10].
Kemp, Peter. 'Love in a Warm Climate.' Sunday Times, 6 March 2010: 40-41.
Fischer, Tibor. 'Book of the Week.' Telegraph, 7 March 2010: 25.
Sexton, David. 'McEwan Makes the Weather in Climate Novel.' Evening Standard (London), 8 March 2010.
Hooper, Rowan. 'The Great Global Warming Satire.' New Scientist, 8 March 2010.
Leith, Sam. 'A Cosmic Comedy.' Spectator, 10 March 2010.
Brown, Mick. 'Warming to the Topic of Climate Change.' Telegraph, 11 March 2010 [Interview; published in print as 'Warming to the Task', Telegraph Magazine, 13 March 2010: 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31].
'You ask... Ian McEwan.' Waterstone's BooksQuarterly, March 2010 [Interview: Waterstone’s Cardholders interview McEwan about his new novel].
Yanofsky, Joel. 'It’s Payback Time, All Around.' Gazette, 11 March 2010.
'Mr Sunshine.' The Economist, 11 March 2010.
Gartner, Zsuzi. 'Messy Misanthropy.' Globe and Mail (Canada), 13 March 2010: F9.
Cohen, Nick. 'Ian McEwan's Solar: It's Green and It Should Be Read.' The Observer, 14 March 2010.
Lapointe, Kirk. 'Ian McEwan's Solar.' Vancouver Sun, 14 March 2010.
Pevere, Geoff. 'Order Meets Chaos When Worlds Collide.' Toronto Star, 14 March 2010.
[Video] 'Ian McEwan's Climate "Boot Room".' BBC, 14 March 2010.
Kelly, Stuart. 'Solar, Ian McEwan.' Scotland on Sunday, 16 March 2010.
Zalewski, Daniel. 'Ian McEwan’s Arctic Inspiration.' New Yorker Blog, 17 March 2010.
Allfree, Claire. 'Ian McEwan's Dark Humour Burns Bright in Energy Tale Solar.' Metro, 18 March 2010.
Hartford, Maggie. 'Solar by Ian McEwan.' Oxford Times, 18 March 2010.
Pope, Kyle. 'Global Warming Gone Bad.' New York Observer, 18 March 2010.
Hegarty, Shane. 'A Change of Climate with Every Book.' The Irish Times, 20 March 2010.
Driver, Duncan. 'A Scientist's Course, from Zenith to Eclipse.' Canberra Times (Australia), 20 March 2010: 13.
Cowley, Jason. 'McEwan Experiments with a Selfish Scientist.' Sunday Independent (Ireland), 21 March 2010.
Robson, Leo. 'Total Eclipse.' New Statesman 139.4993 (22 March 2010): 52-53.
Giles, Jeff. 'Solar.' Entertainment Weekly, 24 March 2010.
Harrison, M. John. 'Ian McEwan's Use of Renewable Resources.' Times Literary Supplement, 24 March 2010.
Jones, Thomas. 'Oh, the Irony.' London Review of Books 32.6 (25 March 2010): 19-20.
Heartfield, James. 'The Power of Solar.' The Spiked Review of Books 33 (March 2010).
Alter, Alexandra. 'Can Climate Change Be Funny?' Wall Street Journal, 26 March 2010 [Interview].
Levy, Paul. 'From Steamy Italy to Frozen Fjords.' Wall Street Journal, 26 March 2010 [Rev. of The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis and Solar by Ian McEwan].
Nicholson, Geoff. 'Solar, by Ian McEwan.' San Francisco Chronicle, 26 March 2010.
Akins, Ellen. 'A Slow Fade of Heat and Light.' Star Tribune, 27 March 2010.
Knox, Malcolm. 'A Mild Case of Sunstroke.' The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 27 March 2010: 23.
Antrim, Taylor. 'Solar: A Novel by Ian McEwan.' Los Angeles Times, 28 March 2010 [Reprinted in the Baltimore Sun].
Smee, Sebastian. 'A Cooling Effect.' Boston Globe, 28 March 2010.
Yabroff, Jennie. 'The Neverending Story.' Newsweek, 29 March 2010: 52.
Kakutani, Michiko. 'The Planet Be Damned. It’s All About Me.' New York Times, 29 March 2010.
Lattanzio, Ryan. 'Too Much in the Sun.' The Daily Californian, 29 March 2010.
Long, Karen R. 'In Solar, Novelist Ian McEwan Tackles Global Warming with a Comic Flair.' The Plain Dealer, 29 March 2010.
Donahue, Deirdre. 'The Sex Sizzles, the Globe Warms in Ian McEwan's Solar.' USA TODAY, 30 March 2010.
Bottum, Joseph.'Let the Sun Shine In.' Wall Street Journal, 30 March 2010.
Lawless, Jill. 'British Writer Ian McEwan Tackles Global Warming in New Novel Solar.' Canadian Press, 30 March 2010 [Interview].
Charles, Ron. 'Review.' Washington Post, 31 March 2010.
Ogle, Connue. 'Clueless Savior Thinks He Can Rescue the World in Solar.' News Tribune, 31 March 2010 [Reprinted in the Miami Herald, 4 April 2010].
McCrystal, John. 'Dark Times as Chickens Come Home to Roost.' New Zealand Herald, 31 March 2010.
Griggs, Jessica. 'Ian McEwan: Mr Sunshine.' New Scientist, 30 March 2010 [Interview].
Mitchison, Graeme. 'Imagining a Universe for Ian McEwan.' New Scientist, 31 March 2010 [Graeme Mitchison is a physicist at the Centre for Quantum Computation at the University of Cambridge. McEwan asked for his assistance with certain aspects of the novel Solar].
'Ian McEwan on His New Book, Solar.' BBC Talking Books, 1 April 2010 [with video].
McAlpin, Heller. 'McEwan's Coldhearted Scientist Melts Down.' wbur.org, 1 April 2010.
'A Novel That Laughs Along with Climate Change.' Discover, 1 April 2010.
Neary, Lynn. 'Ian McEwan, Teasing Farce From Flawed Humanity.' Morning Edition (WBUR), 2 April 2010.
Good, Alex. 'On a Course for Destruction: Aging and Obese Hero of Ian McEwan’s Novel is a Sad Symbol of Planet Earth.' TheRecord.com, 2 April 2010.
Bentley, Daniel. 'Solar by Ian McEwan.' The Northern Echo, 3 April 2010 ["[W]ith his portrayal of Beard, the Booker winner finds new range in his voice, masterfully blending satire and comedy with the suspense and pathos that have long been his forte"].
Macdonald, Moira. 'Ian McEwan's Novel of a Scientist Seeking the Light.' The Seattle Times, 3 April 2010.
Sipahimalani, Sanjay. 'An Over-heated Character.' DNA India, 3 April 2010.
Thomas, Rob. 'Power Trip: McEwan Displays an Uncharacteristic Sense of Humor in Solar.' The Capital Times, 3 April 2010.
'The Flaws of Humanity, Seen Through the Role of a Fictional Physicist.' Physics Today, 5 April 2010.
The Leonard Lopate Show, April 06, 2010 [Novelist Ian McEwan talks about his latest book Solar]. Listen to the show by using the player below:
Steinberg, Julie. 'Solar Author Ian McEwan: "Does art make people better? The jury’s still out".' Wall Street Journal: Speakeasy, 7 April 2010.
Cook, Garret. 'McEwan's Solar a Funny, Darkly Satirical Novel.' The Pine Log, 8 April 2010.
Strimpel, Zoe. 'A Light Comedy with Dark Intentions.' City A.M., 8 April 2010.
Peterson, Vernon. 'Fiction Review: Solar by Ian McEwan.' The Oregonian, 10 April 2010.
Zemanek, Eva. 'A dirty hero's fight for clean energy: satire, allegory, and risk narrative in Ian McEwan's Solar', Ecozon@, 3.1 (2012): 51-60.
Kerridge, Richard. 'The single source [review of Solar]', Ecozon@, 1.1 (2010): 155-60.
Garrard, Greg.'The Unbearable Lightness of Green: Air Travel, Climate Change and Literature', Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism 2013 (Vol.17, no.2): 175-188 [includes section on Solar alongside Michael Crichton and Helen Simpson].
Garrard, Greg.'Solar: Apocalypse Not', in Ian McEwan: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (2nd ed), ed. S. Groes, Continuum, 2013.