Turn Of The Century

This is an uproarious panorama of the ways of our world as one century plunges into the next, pulling in its wake family, marriage, friendship, and propelled by the global businesses and new technologies that make them all spin a little faster.

Rocketing between Los Angeles, Seattle and with occasional stopovers at home with their children in New York, TV producer George Mactier and software executive Lizzie Zimbalist are the sort of business people who, growing up in the Sixties and Seventies, never dreamed they'd end up in business. Too busy to spend the money they make, too clever not to shuffle a little beneath the bright lights of their surreal, high-gloss existences, it seems nothing can slow the momentum of their centrifugally accelerating lives.

But when George's boss, TV network mogul Harold Mose, recruits Lizzie - recovering from almost being made a multi-millionaire courtesy of Microsoft - as his close personal advisor and confidante, the couple discovers that no amount of post-modern spin can obscure the basic instincts - sexual temptation, marital suspicion, personal envy - and, maybe, love.

Andersen has written an unmissable novel for an age of extreme capitalism, playful, knowing and lightning sharp, essential reading for anyone who wants to know where we are at as we dip our toes into the 21st century.