Impossible Owls: Essays from the Ends of the World

(Paperback)

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

'Hilarious, nimble, and thoroughly illuminating' Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad

'Recalls the work of John Jeremiah Sullivan and the late David Foster Wallace, with a dash of Janet Malcolm' Vogue

From its opening journey into remote Alaska for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, IMPOSSIBLE OWLS leads us on a kaleidoscopic exploration of contemporary reality. Brian Phillips takes us to a sumo tournament in Japan, the jungle in India, the studio of a great Russian animator, a royal tour of the Yukon Territory with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and into the weird heart of America. This exhilarating debut visits borders both real and imagined, and asks what it means, in our age, to travel to the end of the map.

Reviews

Again and again, IMPOSSIBLE OWLS proves that Brian Phillips is a cultural codebreaker of the highest order, unlocking the hidden systems of our mad world. Hilarious, nimble and thoroughly illuminating

A rich mix of derring-do, insightful analysis and creative non-fiction . . . funny, sharp, obsessive and very readable - i NEWSPAPER

Brian Phillips's essays are out of this world: big-hearted, exhaustive, unrelentingly curious, and goddamned fun - THE MILLIONS

An absolute blast . . . I couldn't get enough of this book: Phillips is the perfect adventure guide down for anything, talented enough to translate the experience - BUZZFEED

Author Bio

BRIAN PHILLIPS is a former staff writer for Grantland and former senior writer for MTV News. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and Slate, among other publications, and his work has appeared in Best American Sports Writing and Best American Magazine Writing. He lives in central Pennsylvania. IMPOSSIBLE OWLS is his first book.