{"product_id":"lords-of-serendipity","title":"Lords of Serendipity","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Engrossing...Boyagoda offers a clear-eyed view into academia's competition, corruption, and exploitation. This leaves readers with much to chew on.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"A book that's a feast, an occasion and a celebration. Randy Boyagoda delightfully skewers the industrial-academic complex but also creates moving characters who seem to have walked in from the dorm and faculty meeting next door. The result is as moving as it is hysterically funny.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGary Shteyngart, New York Times Bestselling author of Vera, or Faith\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Randy Boyagoda's \u003ci\u003eLords of Serendipity \u003c\/i\u003eis utterly fantastic and timely beyond belief. This is the campus novel we've all been waiting for: tender, eviscerating, perfect.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJunot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This is a new kind of campus novel, a wicked but humane satire that envisions a global community of strivers, charlatans, jaded bureaucrats, and ethically challenged scholars whose lives and destinies keep intersecting in unexpected places with unpredictable outcomes. Randy Boyagoda is a wry and clear-eyed guide to this three-ring academic circus of careerism, venality, and stubborn hope for a better future.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of The Leftovers and Ghost Town\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eLords of Serendipity\u003c\/i\u003e is a sparkling, humane, and irresistible campus novel. As Randy Boyagoda celebrates (and subverts) the comedy of college, he offers what any good education should: not a microcosm, sealed off from the world, but a wide-ranging, free-thinking inquiry into life beyond the ivory tower.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGarth Risk Hallberg, author of City on Fire and The Second Coming\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A book that's a feast, an occasion and a celebration. Randy Boyagoda delightfully skewers the industrial-academic complex but also creates moving characters who seem to have walked in from the dorm and faculty meeting next door. The result is as moving as it is hysterically funny.\" --Gary Shteyngart, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eVera, or Faith\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn epic campus novel about the hopes and hypocrisies of 21st-century higher education, from one of Canada's most celebrated literary novelists.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDevi is a Sri Lankan village girl who dreams of going to Harvard. Katrina is a middle-class American girl whose life has been designed to get her into an elite liberal arts college. Devi's father cleans toilets in a five-star hotel to pay for his daughter's Indian tutor, who might not be the Oxford student he claims to be on WhatsApp. Katrina's father teaches extra courses at a mediocre technical university to pay for his daughter's academic lifestyle experiences. Meanwhile, his tech-bro TA expertly extorts money from international students worried about flunking and getting deported.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSet between contemporary Sri Lanka and the United States, \u003ci\u003eLords of Serendipity\u003c\/i\u003e is a wry, moving, and sharply observed story about how rich and poor alike try to get ahead by going to university. It's about dreams and ambition meeting corruption and hypocrisy. It's about what parents are willing to do for their children, and about what strivers and hustlers are willing to do when they meet gatekeepers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the 21st-century global campus novel, a story about two teenage girls from opposite sides of the world with the same dream: four years in a quadrangle-shaped paradise that offers lots of super amazing courses and super amazing protests. The novel couldn't be more timely in this absurd and perilous-feeling moment for both American life and higher education.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Randy Boyagoda's \u003ci\u003eLords of Serendipity\u003c\/i\u003e is utterly fantastic and timely beyond belief. This is the campus novel we've all been waiting for: tender, eviscerating, perfect.\" --Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eContributor Bio:\u003c\/strong\u003eBoyagoda, Randy\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRandy Boyagoda is a novelist who writes about books and ideas for publications including T\u003cem\u003ehe Atlantic, \u003c\/em\u003ethe \u003cem\u003eNew York Times, \u003c\/em\u003eand \u003cem\u003ethe Financial Times of London\u003c\/em\u003e. His fiction has been nominated for the Giller Prize and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a \u003cem\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e Editor's Choice Selection and \u003cem\u003eGlobe and Mail \u003c\/em\u003eBest Book of the Year. He is a professor of English at the University of Toronto.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"Mariner Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496113307926,"sku":"9780063474857","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9780063474857.jpg?v=1783053395","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/lords-of-serendipity","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}