Neal Stephenson

Created by the world's leading paper engineer and art director, Gérard Lo Monaco, 'A Train Journey' is a beautifully layered, pop-up celebration of trains.

The book begins in 1829 with Robert Stephenson's ‘Rocket' locomotive, the most advanced of its day, which operated on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The journey then hits the heights with Manhattan's elevated railroad: see the trains buzzing and alive among 1900 New York's distinctive high-rises! Skipping forward to the 1920s, marvel at what was the most powerful locomotive on the London and North Eastern Railway: the ‘Flying Scotsman', which provided a non-stop daily service from London to Edinburgh. Readers will then encounter the glamour of the 1930s and 40s on the celebrated Orient Express as it travels between Paris and Istanbul. Finally, readers are taken on a sprint to the present to see Japan's Shinkansen ‘Bullet' and China's CHR 400 high-speed intercity trains, travelling at an impressive 320 km/hr.

Neal Stephenson au National Book Festival de 2011 (en anglais)