Still only in her mid-thirties and on her third novel, New York author Nicole Krauss has already created quite a stir within literary circles. Her second novel, The History of Love (2005), became an international bestseller, garnering widespread praise and nominations for the Medicis, Femina and Orange Prizes. She was later named by The New Yorker on its "20 under 40" list of prestigious writers. Great House follows the travails of protagonists in London, Jerusalem and New York, and their involvement with a "desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away".