Expo 58 - Good-looking girls and sinister spies: a naive Englishman at loose in Europe in Jonathan Coe's brilliant comic novel London, 1958: unassuming civil servant Thomas Foley is plucked from his desk at the Central Office of Information and sent on a
Set against the backdrop of the Millenium celebrations and Britain's increasingly compromised role in America's war against terrorism', The Closed Circle lifts the lid on an era in which politics and presentation, ideology and the media have become virtually indistinguishable.
**The dazzling new novel from the prize-winning, bestselling author of Middle England** A young woman named Calista meets the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder in the sweltering summer of 1976. She knows nothing about him or his work, but this chance encounter will change her life for good.But while Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself - struggling to raise the money for his next feature film - is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane.In his new novel that is, by turns, funny, tender and profoundly truthful, Jonathan Coe turns his gaze to the nature of time, fame, family and nostalgia. When the world is catapulting towards change, do you hold on for dear life or decide it''s time to let go?br>_______________________________________________________Praise for Jonathan Coe''Coe is a writer of uncommon decency'' Observer''Brilliantly funny'' Economist''Superb'' Times''Very, very funny'' Stylist>
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 Â- 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
A comedy about the powers we acquire and relinquish when we fall asleep, and when we fall in love. It features Sarah who is narcoleptic, Terry, a disillusioned film critic for whom sleep is a memory, and for Dr Dunstan, sleep is nothing less than a global disease.
'What I want you to have, Imogen, above all, is a sense of your own history; a sense of where you come from, and of the forces that made you.' Rosamund lies dying in her remote Shropshire home. But before she does so, she has one last task: to put on tape not just her own story but the story of the young blind girl, her cousin's granddaughter, who turned up mysteriously at her party all those years ago. This is a story of generations, of the relationships within a family - and of what goes to make a child.
Maxwell Sim seems to have hit rock bottom: separated from his wife and daughter, estranged from his father, and with no one to confide in even though he has 74 friends on Facebook. He's not even sure whether he's got a job until suddenly a strange business proposition comes his way which involves a long journey to the Shetland Isles - and a voyage into his family's past which throws up some surprising revelations.
Jonathan Coe's new book is a story for our times: Maxwell finds himself at sea in the modern world, surrounded by social networks but unable to relate properly to anyone. Yet as he delves into his family history he manages to find the resources to survive.
Rosamund lies dying in her remote Shropshire home. But before she does so, she has one last task: to put on tape not just her own story but the story of the young blind girl, her cousin's granddaughter, who turned up mysteriously at her party all those years ago.
Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events; Robert has had his life changed for ever by the misunderstandings arising from her condition; Terry, the insomniac, spends his nights fuelling his obsession with movies; and the Dr Gregory Dudden sees sleep as a life-shortening disease which must be eradicated.
When Penguin published What a Carve Up! in 1994, Jonathan Coe's lasting fame was assured. There followed a string of widely acclaimed novels that together chart the changing social fabric of Britain over the last thirty years.
