The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

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Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307595552
Total Pages : 391 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim written by Jonathan Coe and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maxwell Sim can’t seem to make a single meaningful connection. His absent father was always more interested in poetry; he maintains an e-mail correspondence with his estranged wife, though under a false identity; his incomprehensible teenage daughter prefers her BlackBerry to his conversation; and his best friend since childhood is refusing to return his calls. He has seventy-four friends on Facebook, but nobody to talk to. In an attempt to stir himself out of this horrible rut, Max quits his job as a customer liaison at the local department store and accepts a strange business proposition that falls in his lap by chance: he’s hired to drive a Prius full of toothbrushes to the remote Shetland Islands, part of a misguided promotional campaign for a dental-hygiene company intent on illustrating the slogan “We Reach Furthest.” But Max’s trip doesn’t go as planned, as he’s unable to resist making a series of impromptu visits to important figures from his past who live en route. After a string of cruelly enlightening and intensely awkward misadventures, he finds himself falling in love with the soothing voice of his GPS system (“Emma”) and obsessively identifying with a sailor who perpetrated a notorious hoax and subsequently lost his mind. Eventually Max begins to wonder if perhaps it’s a severe lack of self-knowledge that’s hampering his ability to form actual relationships. A humane satire and modern-day picaresque, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim is a gently comic and rollickingly entertaining novel about the paradoxical difficulties of making genuine attachments in a world of advanced communications technology and rampant social networking.

What a Carve Up!

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141918330
Total Pages : 512 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis What a Carve Up! by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book What a Carve Up! written by Jonathan Coe and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-05-19 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What a Carve Up! - a hilarious 1980s political satire by Jonathan Coe It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year: Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it isn't; Henry's turning hospitals into car parks; Roddy's selling art in return for sex; down on the farm Dorothy's squeezing every last pound from her livestock; Thomas is making a killing on the stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators. But once their hapless biographer Michael Owen starts investigating the family's trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings, the time growing ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance. . . This wickedly funny take on life under the Thatcher government was the winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 'A sustained feat of humour, suspense and polemic, full of twists and ironies' Hilary Mantel, Sunday Times 'A riveting social satire on the chattering and all-powerful upper classes' Time Out 'Big, hilarious, intricate, furious, moving' Guardian Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with biting social commentary, moving and astute observations of life and hilarious set pieces that have made him one of the most popular writers of his generation. His other titles, The Accidental Woman, A Touch of Love, The Rotters' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The Closed Circle, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, The House of Sleep (winner of the1998 Prix Médicis Étranger), and The Rain Before it Falls, are all available in Penguin paperback.

Number 11

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Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0451493370
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis Number 11 by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book Number 11 written by Jonathan Coe and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in the early years of this century, Number 11 follows two friends, Alison and Rachel, as they come of age. As the narrative progresses from the aftermath of the Iraq War to the present day, its scope broadens to include others who are variously connected to these two girls: Alison’s mother, a has-been singer, competes on a grisly reality TV show; Rachel’s university mentor finally confronts her late husband’s obsessive search for a German film he saw as a child; a young police constable investigates the seemingly unrelated deaths of two stand-up comedians; and a giant spider lurks in the darkness beneath one of London’s most staggeringly expensive neighborhoods. Combining his signature humor, psychological insight and social commentary, Jonathan Coe holds up a disquieting, unforgiving mirror in which to reflect a world where the systems are broken and everyone can—and perhaps must—name his or her own price.

The Rotters' Club

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Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 030742927X
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rotters' Club by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book The Rotters' Club written by Jonathan Coe and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birmingham, England, c. 1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, corrosive class warfare, adolescent angst, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by guitar rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school. As the world appears to self-destruct around them, they hold together to navigate the choppy waters of a decidedly ambiguous decade.

Mr. Wilder and Me

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Author :
Publisher : Europa Editions
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (896 download)

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Book Synopsis Mr. Wilder and Me by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book Mr. Wilder and Me written by Jonathan Coe and published by Europa Editions. This book was released on 2023-08-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE "Outstanding."--Alex Harvey, Los Angeles Review of Books "Captivating...A delight."--Malcolm Forbes, Washington Examiner "A really warm and wonderful and fun and happy book."--NPR's All Sides with Ann Fischer "Beautifully written and filled with compassion, humor and an abundance of knowledge about old Hollywood, Mr. Wilder and Me sheds light on lives that aren't perfect but still well lived."--Bookpage A naive young woman called Calista finds herself working for the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost nothing. While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realization that his star may be on the wane. In a novel that is at once a tender coming-of-age story and an intimate portrait of one of cinema's most intriguing figures, Jonathan Coe turns his gaze on the nature of time and fame, of family and the treacherous lure of nostalgia. "In its own quiet way, the novel is as odd as the movie it describes: part Hollywood biopic, part Holocaust memoir, part middle-class domestic drama."--Benjamin Markovits, The New York Times Book Review "Life-affirming, genuinely affecting, sublime, Mr. Wilder and Me is a joy to read."--Now Toronto

The Tiger's Wife

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Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0679604367
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (796 download)

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Book Synopsis The Tiger's Wife by : Téa Obreht

Download or read book The Tiger's Wife written by Téa Obreht and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Spectacular . . . [Téa Obreht] spins a tale of such marvel and magic in a literary voice so enchanting that the mesmerized reader wants her never to stop.”—Entertainment Weekly Look for Téa Obreht’s second novel, Inland, now available. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times • Entertainment Weekly • The Christian Science Monitor • The Kansas City Star • Library Journal Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation. In a Balkan country mending from war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. Searching for clues, she turns to his worn copy of The Jungle Book and the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with “the deathless man.” But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told her—the legend of the tiger’s wife. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street Journal • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Economist • Vogue • Slate • Chicago Tribune • The Seattle Times • Dayton Daily News • Publishers Weekly • Alan Cheuse, NPR’s All Things Considered “Stunning . . . a richly textured and searing novel.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “[Obreht] has a talent for subtle plotting that eludes most writers twice her age, and her descriptive powers suggest a kind of channeled genius. . . . No novel [this year] has been more satisfying.”—The Wall Street Journal “Filled with astonishing immediacy and presence, fleshed out with detail that seems firsthand, The Tiger’s Wife is all the more remarkable for being the product not of observation but of imagination.”—The New York Times Book Review “That The Tiger’s Wife never slips entirely into magical realism is part of its magic. . . . Its graceful commingling of contemporary realism and village legend seems even more absorbing.”—The Washington Post

The Vices

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Publisher : Other Press, LLC
ISBN 13 : 1590514165
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (95 download)

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Book Synopsis The Vices by : Lawrence Douglas

Download or read book The Vices written by Lawrence Douglas and published by Other Press, LLC. This book was released on 2011-08-16 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oliver Vice, forty-one, prominent philosopher, scholar, and art collector, is missing and presumed dead, over the side of Queen Mary 2.Troubled by his friend’s possible suicide, the unnamed narrator of Lawrence Douglas’ new novel launches an all-consuming investigation into Vice’s life history. Douglas, moving backward through time, tells a mordantly humorous story of fascination turned obsession, as his narrator peels back the layers of the Vice family’s rich and bizarre history. At the heart of the family are Francizka, Oliver’s handsome, overbearing, vaguely anti-Semitic Hungarian mother, and his fraternal twin brother, Bartholomew, a gigantic and troubled young man with a morbid interest in Europe’s great tyrants. As the narrator finds himself drawn into a battle over the family’s money and art, he comes to sense that someone—or perhaps the entire family—is hiding an unsavory past. Pursuing the truth from New York to London, from Budapest to Portugal, he remains oblivious to the irony of the search: that in his need to understand Vice’s life, he is really grappling with ambivalence about his own.

The Closed Circle

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Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307428265
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis The Closed Circle by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book The Closed Circle written by Jonathan Coe and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The characters of The Rotters’ Club–Jonathan Coe’s beloved novel of adolescent life in the 1970s–have bartered their innocence for the vengeance of middle age in this incisive portrait of Cool Britannia at the millennium.

The House of Sleep

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Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0525434348
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (254 download)

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Book Synopsis The House of Sleep by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book The House of Sleep written by Jonathan Coe and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-11-23 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dream of a novel." --Erica Wagner, The Times (London) Following The Winshaw Legacy--Coe's ecstatically reviewed American debut, winner of the John Lewellyn Rhys Prize in England and France's coveted Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger--comes this beguiling, eccentric entertainment. Ashdown--a vast clifftop manor on the English coast--was once a university residence, where a group of students met briefly before going their separate ways. Twelve years later, it has been transformed into a clinic for sleep disorders, and a series of strange coincidences and ostensible synchronicities draws the same group of people together once again, each of them in different ways plagued by sleep. Sarah is narcoleptic, and her inability to distinguish between dreams and waking reality gives rise to a great many misunderstandings--one of which is to change Robert's life forever, as he persists for years (and then some) in his attempt to win her love. For Terry, a disillusioned film critic whose career has been derailed by Sarah's affliction, sleep is merely a memory, for his insomnia is complete and he can only yearn for the tantalizing dreams he enjoyed in youth. And for the increasingly deranged Dr. Dudden, who has made the subject the focus of his medical practice, sleep is nothing less than a global disease. With panache worthy of Nabokov, and with the heart to match his sophistication, Jonathan Coe has written a breathtakingly original comedy about the powers we acquire--and those we relinquish--when we fall asleep, or fall in love. "This is a remarkable book, most impressive for its subtle narrative patterning, like a dapple of light and shade, allowing us to indulge the illusion of understanding its characters, until, all at once, the darkness, the isolation and the mystery return. Perhaps most strange of all, for a novel about insomniacs, The House of Sleep is a wonderful bedtime read." --David Nokes, Sunday Times

Jews Queers Germans

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Publisher : Seven Stories Press
ISBN 13 : 1609807391
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis Jews Queers Germans by : Martin Duberman

Download or read book Jews Queers Germans written by Martin Duberman and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtaking historical novel that recreates the intimate milieu around Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm from 1907 through the 1930s, a period of great human suffering and destruction and also of enormous freedom and creativity, a time when the remnants and artifices of the old word still mattered, and yet when art and the social sciences were pirouetting with successive revolutions in thought and style. Set in a time when many men in the upper classes in Europe were gay, but could not be so publicly, Jews Queers Germans revolves around three men: Prince Philipp von Eulenburg, Kaiser Wilhelm II's closest friend, who becomes the subject of a notorious 1907 trial for homosexuality; Magnus Hirschfeld, a famed, Jewish sexologist who gives testimony at the trial; and Count Harry Kessler, a leading proponent of modernism, and the keeper of a famous set of diaries which lay out in intimate detail the major social, artistic and political events of the day and allude as well to his own homosexuality. The central theme here is the gay life of a very upper crust intellectual milieu that had a real impact on the major political upheavals that would shape the modern world forever after.

A Touch of Love

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141916907
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis A Touch of Love by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book A Touch of Love written by Jonathan Coe and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-05-19 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Touch of Love is Jonathan Coe's delightfully comic and moving novel about not fitting in Robin, a postgraduate student in Coventry, has spent four and a half years not writing his thesis. He and his academic colleagues, united by pallor, social ineptitude and sexual inexperience, once spent hours discussing their theories, but they somehow never made it into print. Now his unfinished thesis languishes in a drawer, and Robin hides in his room, increasingly frightened by a world he doesn't understand. His friends have failed him and romance eludes him. His only outlet is his short stories, scribbled in notebooks and expressing his secret obsessions and frustrations. Then, when an unfortunate and embarrassing incident in a public park lands him in serious trouble, Robin's life finally spirals out of control. . . A Touch of Love is a brilliant, bittersweet book that will be enjoyed by readers of David Nicholls, Nick Hornby and lovers of comic fiction. 'A magnetic, moving tale' Observer 'Very funny' The Times Literary Supplement 'Witty and astringently intelligent' Guardian Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with biting social commentary, moving and astute observations of life and hilarious set pieces that have made him one of the most popular writers of his generation. His other titles, Bournville, Middle England, The Accidental Woman, The Rotters' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, The House of Sleep (winner of the1998 Prix Médicis Étranger), What a Carve Up! (winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize) and The Rain Before it Falls, are all available as Penguin paperback.

Noah's Wife

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698407857
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (984 download)

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Book Synopsis Noah's Wife by : Lindsay Starck

Download or read book Noah's Wife written by Lindsay Starck and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Daniel Wallace’s Big Fish and Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child, a gorgeously written and fable-like novel recasting Noah’s Ark as a story of relationships, courage, resilience, and hope. “Variously romantic, symbolic, philosophical, feminist, and fanciful, this is an atmospheric tale that meanders to a sweetly rousing conclusion. . . . Forget the ark, forget the patriarch. It's the women who tend to triumph in this modern take on an Old Testament parable.” – Kirkus Reviews In loving Noah, his wife never imagined she’d end up in this gray and wet little town where it’s been raining for as long as anyone can remember. Newly appointed as pastor, Noah is determined to bring the eccentric townspeople back to the church, but the members of his congregation only want to keep their homes afloat. As the water swallows up the houses, the renowned zoo, and the single highway out of town, Noah, his wife, and their new neighbors must confront not only the savage forces of nature but also the fragile ties that bind them to one another. Poignant and whimsical, playful and wise, Noah’s Wife challenges our expectations of love, commitment, and redemption. By reimagining this classic story in a new and modern light, the novel asks: how do we know when to stay and when it’s time to go?

Expo 58

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Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 054434376X
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (443 download)

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Book Synopsis Expo 58 by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book Expo 58 written by Jonathan Coe and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An English public employee becomes embroiled in a Soviet plot while he oversees the construction of an authentic British pub being showcased at the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. By the author of The Winshaw Legacy. 10,000 first printing.

The Broken Mirror

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Publisher : Unbound Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1783524189
Total Pages : 69 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (835 download)

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Book Synopsis The Broken Mirror by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book The Broken Mirror written by Jonathan Coe and published by Unbound Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-02 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can desire really transform reality? From award-winning novelist Jonathan Coe and distinguished Italian artist Chiara Coccorese comes The Broken Mirror, a political parable for children, a contemporary fairy tale for adults, and a fable for all ages. One day Claire, to escape her quarrelsome parents, takes refuge in the dump behind her house. There she finds a broken mirror, a nasty piece of sharp glass... yet she is strangely drawn to it. She soon discovers it has the power to transform even the most drab reality into a fairy-tale world: the grey sky is reflected blue, and Claire’s modest, suburban house is transformed into the most beautiful castle. As Claire grows older, always accompanied by her magic mirror, she can see her face without her teenage acne, and her town before it fell victim to thieving property developers. But, in reality, libraries are being turned into luxury flats wherever she looks, and the boy Claire loves is instead her worst enemy. Frustrated and angry with the mirror’s illusions, Claire is about to destroy it when the mysterious Peter steps in: he has also found a shard of broken mirror, and so begins their journey to piece together the larger puzzle... Previously published in Italian, French, Greek and Dutch, The Broken Mirror comes to life in English for the first time, to be read with equal pleasure by children and adults.

Pixels of Young Mueller

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780984615445
Total Pages : 154 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (154 download)

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Book Synopsis Pixels of Young Mueller by : Jerry Schwartz

Download or read book Pixels of Young Mueller written by Jerry Schwartz and published by . This book was released on 2010-07 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Klaus Mueller dreams of leaving tiny Southland someday to be a rock star. When he chooses stardom over college, however, he learns that his real education is only beginning. He endures a series of god-awful jobs while his music is repeatedly rejected, and he wonders how he will ever achieve success. After moving to the city, where he finds a career and becomes a father, he is torn between the great happiness he has found and the success he still craves. Klaus must reconcile his dreams with reality or spend the rest of his life lamenting what might have been. Pixels of Young Mueller is the story of an artist's growth to maturity and of his revolt against his family's Christian values. The tale of Klaus Mueller, as told in this modern coming-of-age novel, provides new perspectives on classic themes when Klaus confronts the forces that threaten his existence. Readers can listen to Klaus' music online at www.itsthejerrys.com.

Inheritance

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Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0099540460
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (995 download)

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Book Synopsis Inheritance by : Nicholas Shakespeare

Download or read book Inheritance written by Nicholas Shakespeare and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andy Larkham is late. He is due at the funeral of his favourite school teacher, who once told him: 'It's hard work being anyone.' It's especially hard for Andy -- stuck in a dead-end job, terminally short of cash and with a fiance who is about to ditch him.

The Accidental Woman

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141916885
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis The Accidental Woman by : Jonathan Coe

Download or read book The Accidental Woman written by Jonathan Coe and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-05-19 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Accidental Woman is a wickedly funny novel from bestseller Jonathan Coe For Maria, nothing is certain. Her life is a chain of accidents. Untouched by friendship, unimpressed by devoted Ronny and his endless marriage proposals, she lives in a world of her own, but not of her own making. Even as she stumbled on through university, work, marriage and motherhood, Maria finds it hard to see what all the fuss is about. Will our heroine ever be able to control the direction of her life, or will it end, as it began, by accident? What does chance next have in store for her? From the author of the award-winning The Rotters' Club and What a Carve Up!, The Accidental Woman will be enjoyed by readers of Nick Hornby and William Boyd and centres on a quirky and highly individual woman who is still struggling to find her place in life. 'The Accidental Woman has a cocky individual voice of its own. . . here's precocious, rebellious talent' Mail on Sunday 'Slyly parodies the clichés of most first novels' Guardian 'A convincing stuffy of the random impetuses by which human lives tend to be governed. It is also very funny' Spectator Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with biting social commentary, moving and astute observations of life and hilarious set pieces that have made him one of the most popular writers of his generation. His other titles, What a Carve Up! (winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), A Touch of Love, The Rotters' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The Closed Circle, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, The House of Sleep (winner of the1998 Prix Médicis Étranger), and The Rain Before it Falls, are all available in Penguin paperback.