The New Men — C.P. Snow / Charles Percy Snow

Winner of the James Tait Black Prize: Two brothers find themselves at odds amid Britain's quest for an atomic weapon, in this vivid historical novel.

As the Second World War begins to rage, Britain's brightest minds put their efforts into the development of atomic munitions, laboring away in a closely guarded research station in a Warwickshire village. Lewis Eliot, in a stint as a civil servant, gets his brother, Martin, a position there. But as tensions and debate swirl among the scientific community, the opportunity may turn into a full-blown crisis, in this gripping novel by a Booker Prize finalist whose wide-ranging career spanned the worlds of both science and government in mid-twentieth century Britain.

“A master craftsman in fiction.” -- The New York Times

“Together, the [Strangers and Brothers] sequence presents a vivid portrait of British academic, political and public life.” -- Jeffrey Archer, The Guardian