{"product_id":"bournville-9780241517406","title":"Bournville","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e''A wickedly funny, clever, but also tender and lyrical novel about Britain and Britishness and what we have become'' RACHEL JOYCE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Bournville, a placid suburb of Birmingham, sits a famous chocolate factory. For eleven-year-old Mary and her family in 1945, it''s the centre of the world. The reason their streets smell faintly of chocolate, the place where most of their friends and neighbours have worked for decades. Mary will go on to live through the Coronation and the World Cup final, royal weddings and royal funerals, Brexit and Covid-19. She''ll have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Parts of the chocolate factory will be transformed into a theme park, as modern life and the city crowd in on their peaceful enclave.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs we travel through seventy-five years of social change, from James Bond to Princess Diana, and from wartime nostalgia to the World Wide Web, one pressing question starts to emerge: will these changing times bring Mary''s family - and their country - closer together, or leave them more adrift and divided than ever before?\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*****\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''A beautiful, and often very funny, tribute to an underexamined place and also a truly moving story of how a country discovered tolerance'' Sathnam Sanghera, bestselling author of\u003ci\u003e Empireland\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e''A hugely impressive state-of-the-nation tale'' \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''This charming read is as warming, rich and comforting as a mug of hot chocolate'' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003eWritten with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe''s unmissable new novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Proof of My Innocence\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cu\u003e, is available to order now!\u003c\/u\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith his third novel in four years, \u003cb\u003eCoe is on a roll\u003c\/b\u003e; he tracks the fortunes of a family through snapshots of communal experiences, from the Queen's coronation through the 1966 World Cup to pandemic lockdown, in\u003cb\u003e a moving, compassionate portrait of individual and national change\u003c\/b\u003e * Guardian, Best Fiction of 2022 *\u003cbr\u003eThe way Coe starkly captures the paranoia and fear of the early days of the pandemic is \u003cb\u003eimpressive \u003c\/b\u003eand he has written what he calls a \"faithful account\" of the death of his mother during lockdown.\u003cb\u003e It makes an intensely affecting finale to a fine novel. \u003c\/b\u003e * Independent, Best Book of the Year *\u003cbr\u003eFew contemporary writers can make a success of the state of the nation novel: Jonathan Coe is one of them * New Statesman *\u003cbr\u003eEpic in scope, but personal in resonance -- Elizabeth Day\u003cbr\u003eCoe's\u003cb\u003e interwoven paeans to the lives of those rooted in the very centre of the UK\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003ci\u003eThe Rotter's Club and Middle England \u003c\/i\u003eamong them - \u003cb\u003eblend comedy, tragedy and social commentary in enjoyably memorable fashion, and his latest, \u003ci\u003eBournville\u003c\/i\u003e, is no exception\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e. . . Coe's particular gift is to understand how nostalgia, regret and an apprehension of what the future will bring might make us more, not less, empathetic to the frailties of those around us \u003c\/b\u003e * FT, Best Audiobooks of the Year *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eVery tempting\u003c\/b\u003e * The Times *\u003cbr\u003eIn this affecting generational saga, framed by the pandemic and structured by seven milestone broadcasts,\u003cb\u003e Jonathan Coe - known for his state-of-the-nation novels - once again takes the temperature of Britain\u003c\/b\u003e * FT, Best Books of 2022 *\u003cbr\u003eAt heart \u003ci\u003eBournville \u003c\/i\u003eis a novel \u003cb\u003edesigned to make you think by making you laugh, and the seriousness of the subject matter is tempered throughout by the author's piercing eye for the more ludicrous elements of human nature\u003c\/b\u003e * New Statesman *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA compelling social history that's sprinkled throughout with Coe's inimitable humour, love and white-hot anger\u003c\/b\u003e * Evening Standard *\u003cbr\u003eA hugely impressive state-of-the-nation tale * Observer *\u003cbr\u003eBritish novelists love to diagnose the state of the nation.\u003cb\u003e Few do it better than Jonathan Coe, who writes with warmth and subversive glee about social change and the comforting mundanities it imperils\u003c\/b\u003e * Spectator *\u003cbr\u003eThis charming read is \u003cb\u003eas warming, rich and comforting as a mug of hot chocolate\u003c\/b\u003e * The Times *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis is another eminently readable Coe, full of believable characters and fizzing dialogue. And it couldn't be more timely\u003c\/b\u003e * Big Issue *\u003cbr\u003eCoe has the great gift of combining \u003cb\u003eengaging human stories \u003c\/b\u003ewith a deeper structural pattern that gives the book its heft * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet in Coe's native\u003cbr\u003eMidlands and told through the\u003cbr\u003elives of four generations of one\u003cbr\u003efamily, beginning with 11-year-old\u003cbr\u003eMary in 1945, \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBournville \u003c\/i\u003eis a\u003cbr\u003epoignant, clever and witty portrait\u003cbr\u003eof social change and how the\u003cbr\u003eBritish see themselves.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e * Radio Times, Best Books of the Year *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBournville \u003c\/i\u003eis \u003cb\u003eJonathan Coe's most ambitious novel yet\u003c\/b\u003e . . . a novel about people and place. \u003cb\u003eEntertaining and often poignant, it presents a captivating portrait of how Britons lived then and the way they live now\u003c\/b\u003e * Economist *\u003cbr\u003eA book of things blended together: comedy with tragedy, England's past with its present, and cocoa solids with vegetable fat . . . \u003cb\u003ethe best fictional portrayal of lockdown that I've read\u003c\/b\u003e * Irish Times *\u003cbr\u003eTold with \u003cb\u003ecompassion, steadiness, decency and always a glint in the eye, this is a novel that both challenges and delights. For anyone who has felt lost in the past six years, it is like meeting an ally\u003c\/b\u003e -- Rachel Joyce, author of Miss Benson's Beetle\u003cbr\u003eCoe is an \u003cb\u003eeminently readable \u003c\/b\u003enovelist * Daily Mail *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFull of vibrant characters and fabulous dialogue, which switches from laugh-out-loud funny to extremely poignant\u003c\/b\u003e * Independent *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe changing face of postwar Britain is brilliantly captured\u003c\/b\u003e * FT *\u003cbr\u003eAs the latest in J Coe's Unrest sequence, \u003ci\u003eBournville\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the most \u003cb\u003ewarm-hearted, brilliant and beguiling\u003c\/b\u003e of his State of the Nation novels. To show three generations of an ordinary Midlands family, their paths taken and not taken, their friends, lovers, jobs, achievements and losses; to interweave this with 75 years of national history - and to do so with such a lightness of touch is a tremendous achievement. \u003cb\u003eAll the absurdities of our nation wrapped up in something as bitter, sweet, and addictive as a bar of the best Bournville chocolate\u003c\/b\u003e -- Amanda Craig, author of The Golden Rule\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAffectionate, full of good humour, and often moving, this is Coe at his best.\u003c\/b\u003e * Crack Magazine *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSlips down a treat\u003c\/b\u003e * Daily Mail *\u003cbr\u003eFor all the novel's satirical tang and historical sweep, it's at root\u003cb\u003e a tender portrait \u003c\/b\u003eof apparently simple folk trying to fathom the mystery of their own personalities * Spectator *\u003cbr\u003eA tender portrayal of the state of the nation through the prism of family relationships * Woman \u0026amp; Home *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThere is much to enjoy here, as in all Coe's novels . . . an intelligent criticism of our shared history since 1945\u003c\/b\u003e * Scotsman *\u003cbr\u003e[Coe] has a huge talent for balancing \u003cb\u003ehumour \u003c\/b\u003ewith\u003cb\u003e poignancy\u003c\/b\u003e * Book of the month, Good Housekeeping *","brand":"Penguin Books Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48733160243543,"sku":"9780241517406","price":9.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780241517406.jpg?v=1719999632","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/bournville-9780241517406","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}