Search results for ""author jonathan coe""

A heartbreaking novel of family secrets from one of the masters of modern fiction, The Rain Before it Falls is part of our Penguin Essentials series which spotlights the very best of our modern classicsDeeply moving and compelling, The Rain Before it Falls is the story of three generations of one family riven by tragedy. When Rosamund, a reluctant bearer of family secrets, dies suddenly, a mystery is left for her niece Gill to unravel. Some photograph albums and tapes point towards a blind girl named Imogen whom no one has seen in twenty years. The search for Imogen and the truth of her inheritance becomes a shocking story of mothers and daughters and of how sadness, like a musical refrain, may haunt us down the years.'A sad, often very moving story of mothers and daughters' Guardian'Entirely compelling...the plot will keep you rapt...reminiscent of Ian McEwan at his most effective' New Statesman

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'Sometimes I feel that I am destined always to be offstage whenever the main action occurs. That God has made me the victim of some cosmic practical joke, by assigning me little more than a walk-on part in my own life . . .'Coming of age in 1970s' Birmingham, teenager Benjamin Trotter is about to discover the agonies and ecstasies of growing up. Whether it is first love or last rites, IRA bombs or industrial strife, prog versus punk rock, expectations of bad poetry or an unexpected life-changing experience involving lost swimming trunks, The Rotters' Club is a heartfelt and hilarious portrait of a particular time and place featuring characters recognisable the world over . . .'Very funny, a compulsive and gripping read' The Times 'Hugely entertaining' The Observer 'A book to cherish, a book to reread, a book to buy for all your friends' Independent on Sunday

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Expo 58 by Jonathan Coe - Spies, girls and an Englishman abroad. Trust no one.London, 1958: unassuming civil servant Thomas Foley is plucked from his desk job and sent on a six-month trip to Brussels. His task: to keep an eye on The Britannia, a brand new pub which will form the heart of the British presence at Expo 58 - the biggest World's Fair of the century.As soon as he arrives, Thomas is equally bewitched by the surreal, gigantic Atomium, which stands at the heart of this brave new world, and by Anneke, a lovely Flemish hostess. But Thomas's new-found sense of freedom comes at a price: two British spies are following him.For fans of Jonathan Coe's classic comic bestsellers What a Carve Up! and The Rotters' Club, this hilarious new novel, which is set in the Mad Men period of the mid 50s, will also be loved by readers of Nick Hornby, William Boyd and Ian McEwan.'Clever and funny, enthralling and moving. Wonderful!' Daily Mail'Rich and splendidly comic' Independent

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In his heyday, during the 1960s and early 1970s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known young novelists in Britain. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde in both literature and film, he became famous -- not to say notorious -- both for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for his idiosyncratic ways of putting them into practice. But in November 1973 Johnson's lifelong depression got the better of him, and he was found dead at his north London home. He had taken his own life at the age of forty. Jonathan Coe's biography is based upon unique access to the vast collection of papers Johnson left behind after his death, and upon dozens of interviews with those who knew him best. As unconventional in form as one of its subject's own novels, it paints a remarkable picture -- sometimes hilarious, often overwhelmingly sad -- of a tortured personality; a man whose writing tragically failed to keep at bay the demons that pursued him.

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The hilarious 1980s political satire by Jonathan Coe, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time.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

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The first in The Rotters' Club series, bestselling author Jonathan Coe's iconic tale of Benjamin Trotter is a hilarious, heartfelt celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up WINNER OF THE EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE __________ Birmingham, England, c. 1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, first love, corrosive class warfare, detention, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school. Unforgettably funny and painfully honest, The Rotters' Club is perfect for readers of Nick Hornby and William Boyd - or anyone who ever experience adolescence the hard way! THE STORY CONTINUES IN THE CLOSED CIRCLE AND MIDDLE ENGLAND. __________ 'One of those sweeping, ambitious yet hugely readable, moving and richly comic novels . . . a masterpiece' Daily Telegraph 'Very funny . . . Coe had achieved that rare feat: a novel stuffed with characters you really care for' The Times 'A book to cherish, a book to reread, a book to buy for all your friends' Independent on SundayWritten with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available to pre-order now!

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The Rain Before it Falls - Jonathan Coe's heartbreaking novel of family secretsDeeply moving and compelling, The Rain Before it Falls is the story of three generations of one family riven by tragedy. When Rosamund, a reluctant bearer of family secrets, dies suddenly, a mystery is left for her niece Gill to unravel. Some photograph albums and tapes point towards a blind girl named Imogen whom no one has seen in twenty years. The search for Imogen and the truth of her inheritance becomes a shocking story of mothers and daughters and of how sadness, like a musical refrain, may haunt us down the years.'Spectacular, heartbreaking, beautifully written. Rosamund's story is one of the most extraordinary and compelling you will ever read. Impossible to put down, I loved every minute of it' Sunday Express'A sad, often very moving story of mothers and daughters' Guardian'Entirely compelling...the plot will keep you rapt...reminiscent of Ian McEwan at his most effective' New Statesman Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with moving, astute observations of life and love, and are written with a revealing honesty that has captivated a generation of readers. His other titles, The Accidental Woman, The Rotters' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The Closed Circle, The Dwarves of Death, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, The House of Sleep (winner of the 1998 Prix Médicis Étranger), A Touch of Love, and What a Carve Up! (winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), are all available in Penguin paperback.

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Discover bestselling author Jonathan Coe's hilarious sequel to The Rotters' Club!It's the end of the century and Benjamin Trotter and friends are all grown up. Life is a ceaseless whirl of jobs, marriages, kids - and self-inflicted angst. Despite the shiny optimism of Blair's Britain, youthful hopes and dreams feel betrayed. Is the Government (and by extension Benjamin's MP brother Paul) to blame? Or are the 'rotters' themselves - only passingly faithful to their dreams - really at fault? The Closed Circle depicts a group of former school friends as older, wiser and disillusioned in Blair's Britain at the turn of the millennium, proving that the present can never truly be disentangled from the past.THE STORY CONTINUES IN MIDDLE ENGLAND.__________ 'Terrific. An incisive portrait of Britain at the turn of the century' Spectator 'Coe's finest achievement since What a Carve up!' Time Out 'Popular fiction at its best' Daily MailWritten with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available to order now!

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The prize-winning, bestselling author of Middle England turns his gaze to one of cinema's most intriguing figures - famed director of Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder.***SOON TO BE A MAJOR FILM*** In the summer of 1977, naïve Calista Frangopoulou sets out to venture into the world. On a Greek island that has been turned into a film set, she finds herself working for Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost nothing. While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane. Rebuffed by Hollywood, he has financed his film with German money, and when Calista follows him to Munich, she finds herself joining him on a journey of memory into the dark heart of his family history.At once a tender coming-of-age story and an intimate portrait of a Hollywood icon, Mr Wilder and Me explores the nature of time and fame, of family and the treacherous lure of nostalgia . . .__________ 'Utterly charming, deeply poignant and ultimately uplifting' Mail on Sunday'Sweeps beautifully from Hollywood to Greece and London' FT, Best Books of 2020'The dialogue's sharp, the comic timing excellent' Sunday TimesWritten with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available to pre-order now!

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WINNER OF THE THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2019'The book everyone is talking about' The Times 'A comedy for our times' Guardian __________________ The country is changing and, up and down the land, cracks are appearing - within families and between generations. In the Midlands Benjamin Trotter is trying to help his aged father navigate a Britain that seems to have forgotten he exists, whilst in London his friend Doug doesn't understand why his teenage daughter is eternally enraged. Meanwhile, newlyweds Sophie and Ian can find nothing to agree on except the fact that their marriage is on the rocks . . .A hilarious follow-up to The Rotters' Club and Closed Circle, Jonathan Coe captures the state of our nation once again! __________________ 'Coe's back with a bang. Middle England is the novel about Brexit we need' Daily Telegraph 'A pertinent, entertaining study of a nation in crisis' Financial Times, Books of the Year 'Very funny. Coe - a writer of uncommon decency - reminds us that the way out of this mess is through moderation, through compromise, through that age-old English ability to laugh at ourselves' ObserverWritten with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available to pre-order now!

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The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim is Jonathan Coe's latest heart-breaking and hilarious novelMaxwell Sim could be any of us. He could be you.He's about to have a mid-life crisis (though eh doesn't know it yet). He'll be found in his car in the north of Scotland, half-naked and alone, suffering hypothermia, with a couple of empty whisky bottles and a boot full of toothbrushes.It's a far cry from a restaurant in Sydney, where his story starts.But then Maxwell Sim has, unknowingly, got a long way to go. If he knew now about his lonely journey to the Shetland Isles, or the truth about his father and the folded photograph, or the mystery of Poppy and her peculiar job, or even about Emma's lovely, fading voice, then perhaps he's stay where he was - hiding from destiny.But Max knows none of it. And nor do you - at least not yet. . . Equal parts funny and moving, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim will be cherished by readers everywhere, from fans of David Nicholls to Will Self. 'Witty, unexpected and curiously unsettling. Coe carries it off with empathy, comedy and a ventriloquist's ear for idiom' Literary Review'Clever, engaging, spring-loaded with mysteries and surprises' Time Out'Masterly, highly engaging. Coe's eye for the details of contemporary life remains as sharp as ever' Daily Mail

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A wickedly funny take on life under the Thatcher government by the prize-winning author of Middle England. 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 . . .__________ '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' GuardianWritten with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available to order now!

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This is a novel about the hundreds of tiny connections between the public and private worlds and how they affect us all.It's about the legacy of war and the end of innocence.It's about how comedy and politics are battling it out and comedy might have won.It's about how 140 characters can make fools of us all.It's about living in a city where bankers need cinemas in their basements and others need food banks down the street.It is Jonathan Coe doing what he does best ­- showing us how we live now.'Coe is among the handful of novelists who can tell us something about the temper of our times' Observer

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The Accidental Woman is a wickedly funny novel from bestseller Jonathan CoeFor 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' SpectatorJonathan 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.

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'A wickedly funny, clever, but also tender and lyrical novel about Britain and Britishness and what we have become' RACHEL JOYCEIn 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.As 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?*****'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 Empireland'A hugely impressive state-of-the-nation tale' Observer'This charming read is as warming, rich and comforting as a mug of hot chocolate' The Times

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Mamma was fast asleep at home, her spirit lapped in unconsciousness. Her dreams would not divine that her daughter had stolen out to meet a lover. And next door also they slept unawares, while one of them broke from the circle and came alone to clasp a stranger ...' Judith Earle, over-earnest and inexperienced, has always been a little in love with each of the four cousins who come to stay next door and, on her return from Cambridge, becomes madly in love with one of them - Roddy, the 'sensation-hunter'. DUSTY ANSWER traces with delicate nostalgia childhood friendships and the pangs of thwarted young love.

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Robert Wyatt started out as the drummer and singer for Soft Machine, who shared a residency at Middle Earth with Pink Floyd and toured America with Jimi Hendrix. He brought a Bohemian and jazz outlook to the 60s rock scene, having honed his drumming skills in a shed at the end of Robert Graves' garden in Mallorca. His life took an abrupt turn after he fell from a fourth-floor window at a party and was paralysed from the waist down. He reinvented himself as a singer and composer with the extraordinary album Rock Bottom, and in the early eighties his solo work was increasingly political. Today, Wyatt remains perennially hip, guesting with artists such as Bjork, Brian Eno, Scritti Politti, David Gilmour and Hot Chip. Marcus O'Dair has talked to all of them, indeed to just about everyone who has shaped, or been shaped by, Wyatt over five decades of music history.

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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.

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A brilliantly observed story of crises and reconciliations within families and stepfamilies and the conflict between Millennials and their Baby Boomer parents. Funny, dark, yet limned with hope, Tim Lott returns to a family saga – and social commentary – that began with the award-winning White City Blue, continuing with When We Were Rich. It is a story for everyone trying to make sense of a sharply polarised world where the political has become personal and the personal has become a minefield. Brighton, December 2019: a teenage girl is on an early morning run along the seafront. In her mind she is running away from something she hates, towards something she fears. China’s home is with her mother Veronica, her pompous stepfather Silas and his dysfunctional son Mason. Her father, Frankie, is in London, but they have little contact, his entrenched views a provocation to her socially conscious ideals, his Brexit-supporting girlfriend a jealous rival. Exhausted by family tensions, when China leaves Brighton, her godfather Nodge, Frankie’s best friend, and his husband Owen are her first port of call. But they, too, are beset by domestic conflict. Which leaves only her father to takes her in. They argue, they spar, the fault lines between them grow wider – and then coronavirus strikes. Praise for When We Were Rich ‘A sharp and very funny portrait of a brash era which is also a surprisingly tender take on flawed masculinity’ ― Sarah Hughes, i paper ‘What a terrific novel – wickedly sharp, wildly entertaining – I was gripped from start to finish. With its twisty plots and interwoven characters it paints a vivid portrait of a crucial decade. It's laugh-out-loud funny, too. And with property porn thrown in, what's not to like’ ― Deborah Moggach ‘Wickedly funny and deeply humane. I loved this book’ ― Sadie Jones ‘Tim Lott revisits the years between millennium fever and the financial crisis, and brings this already long-lost era back to life in a novel every bit as evocative and compelling as we would expect from this prodigiously gifted author’ ― Jonathan Coe ‘Lott delivers many hilarious and sad scenes of life in a long-term relationship. He also explores the poignancy and fragility of male friendships, in a manner reminiscent of Graham Swift’s Last Orders. . . [He is,] crucially, careful to linger over moral difficulty and vulnerability rather than evading it’ ― TLS ‘Lott’s carefully observed period piece captures the mood of an era that now seems like a lost world’ ― Daily Mail

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A brilliantly observed story of crises and reconciliations within families and stepfamilies and the conflict between Millennials and their Baby Boomer parents. Funny, dark, yet limned with hope, Tim Lott returns to a family saga – and social commentary – that began with the award-winning White City Blue, continuing with When We Were Rich. It is a story for everyone trying to make sense of a sharply polarised world where the political has become personal and the personal has become a minefield. Brighton, December 2019: a teenage girl is on an early morning run along the seafront. In her mind she is running away from something she hates, towards something she fears. China’s home is with her mother Veronica, her pompous stepfather Silas and his dysfunctional son Mason. Her father, Frankie, is in London, but they have little contact, his entrenched views a provocation to her socially conscious ideals, his Brexit-supporting girlfriend a jealous rival. Exhausted by family tensions, when China leaves Brighton, her godfather Nodge, Frankie’s best friend, and his husband Owen are her first port of call. But they, too, are beset by domestic conflict. Which leaves only her father to takes her in. They argue, they spar, the fault lines between them grow wider – and then coronavirus strikes. Praise for When We Were Rich ‘A sharp and very funny portrait of a brash era which is also a surprisingly tender take on flawed masculinity’ ― Sarah Hughes, i paper ‘What a terrific novel – wickedly sharp, wildly entertaining – I was gripped from start to finish. With its twisty plots and interwoven characters it paints a vivid portrait of a crucial decade. It's laugh-out-loud funny, too. And with property porn thrown in, what's not to like’ ― Deborah Moggach ‘Wickedly funny and deeply humane. I loved this book’ ― Sadie Jones ‘Tim Lott revisits the years between millennium fever and the financial crisis, and brings this already long-lost era back to life in a novel every bit as evocative and compelling as we would expect from this prodigiously gifted author’ ― Jonathan Coe ‘Lott delivers many hilarious and sad scenes of life in a long-term relationship. He also explores the poignancy and fragility of male friendships, in a manner reminiscent of Graham Swift’s Last Orders. . . [He is,] crucially, careful to linger over moral difficulty and vulnerability rather than evading it’ ― TLS ‘Lott’s carefully observed period piece captures the mood of an era that now seems like a lost world’ ― Daily Mail

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The brilliant new novel from the author of The Last Summer of the Water Strider ‘A sharp and very funny portrait of a brash era which is also a surprisingly tender take on flawed masculinity.’ Sarah Hughes, i paper ‘What a terrific novel - wickedly sharp, wildly entertaining - I was gripped from start to finish. With its twisty plots and interwoven characters it paints a vivid portrait of a crucial decade. It's laugh-out-loud funny, too. And with property porn thrown in, what's not to like’ Deborah MoggachMillennium Eve and six people gather on a London rooftop. Recently married, Frankie Blue watches with his wife, Veronica, as the sky above the Thames explodes into a kaleidoscope of light. His childhood companion, Colin, ineptly flirts with Roxy, an unlikely first date, while another old friend, Nodge, newly ‘out’, hides his insecurities from his waspish boyfriend. New Labour are at their zenith. The economy booms, awash with cheap credit. The arrival of the smartphone heralds the sudden and vast expansion of social media. Mass immigration from Eastern Europe leave many unsettled while religious extremism threatens violent conflict. An estate agent in a property boom, Frankie is focused simply on getting rich. But can he survive the coming crash? And what will become of his friends - and his marriage - as they are scoured by the winds of change? When We Were Rich finds the characters introduced in Tim Lott's award-winning 1999 debut, White City Blue, struggling to make sense of a new era. Sad, shocking and often hilarious, it is an acutely observed novel of all our lives, set during what was for some a golden time - and for others a nightmare, from which we are yet to wake up. ‘Wickedly funny and deeply humane. I loved this book’ Sadie Jones ‘Tim Lott revisits the years between millennium fever and the financial crisis, and brings this already long-lost era back to life in a novel every bit as evocative and compelling as we would expect from this prodigiously gifted author’ Jonathan Coe Praise for The Last Summer of the Water Strider: 'I was very moved by The Last Summer of the Water Strider, which is both exquisitely specific to time and place and universal in its examination of humanity, grief and the bizarre prisons that people build for themselves - and one another. Funny, fascinating, mysterious and provocative' Sadie Jones, author of The Outcast'Great storytelling and superb characterisation. Very few writers can evoke quintessential Englishness in its myriad forms like Tim Lott. I loved it' Irvine Welsh'Lott is excellent when it comes to the psychology of a grieving adolescent' Observer

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