All That Man Is

David Szalay · b. 1974 · England

Why it matters

Nine men at different ages, from a teenage backpacker to an aging press baron, drift through contemporary Europe in interlinked stories cataloguing masculinity's quiet humiliations. Szalay's Booker-shortlisted book reads less like a story collection than a single life's arc.

At a glance

Interlinked, loosely connected stories with shifting protagonists ask readers to track pattern over plot.