Summary: Publisher Summary 1 "This study examines the importance of space for the way contemporary novelists experiment with style and form, offering an account of how British writers from the past three decades have engaged with landscape description as a catalyst for innovation. David James considers the work of more than fifteen major British novelists to offer a wide-ranging and accessible commentary on the relationship between landscape and narrative design, demonstrating an approach to the geography of contemporary fiction enriched by the practice of aesthetic criticism. Moving between established and emerging novelists, the book reveals that spatial poetics allow us to chart distinctive and surprising affinities between practitioners, showing how writers today compel us to pay close attention to technique when linking the depiction of physical places to new developments in novelistic craft." --Book Jacket.   Publisher Summary 2 James (literature, University of Nottingham, UK) notes early in his book that most readers don't specifically note the ways in which the author uses the setting to create an emotional reaction and to underline the theme. Using many examples from contemporary British fiction, James reveals the ways in which a short, descriptive paragraph can alter the tone of a book. The authors are as disparate as J. G. Ballard and V. S. Naipul. James skillfully demonstrates the ways in which familiar places, like the city of London, can be seen in an entirely new perspective. The importance of setting to evoke emotions has long been a secret the best writers know. James explains it for the rest of us. Annotation 漏2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)   Publisher Summary 3 A rigorous but accessible account of the interface between landscape and style and form in contemporary British fiction.