As Seen on BBC Between the Covers A brief visit to a Swiss sanatorium becomes a life-altering seven-year odyssey. Hans Castorp arrives at a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps to visit his cousin, intending to stay for just three weeks. But when he falls ill, he remains and is drawn in by the introspection and erudition that define life in the mountains. As his stay extends to seven transformative years, Hans falls in love and becomes intoxicated with the ideas he hears at the clinic - ideas which will strain and crack apart in a world on the verge of the First World War. 'Magnificent... a beautiful, feverish account of obsessive love' Jonathan Coe, Guardian 'The greatest German novelist of the 20th century' Spectator