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A comedy for our times” (The Guardian), Middle England is a piercing and provocative novel about a country in crisis. From the frenzy of the 2012 Olympics to the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, here Jonathan Coe chronicles the story of modern Britain by way of a cast of characters whose world is being upended. There are newlyweds who disagree about the country’s future and, possibly, their relationship; a political commentator who writes impassioned columns about austerity from his lavish town house while his radical teenage daughter undertakes a relentless quest for universal justice; and Benjamin Trotter, who embarks on an apparently doomed new career in middle age, and his father, whose last wish is to vote to leave the European Union. A sequel to The Rotters’ Club and The Closed Circle that stands entirely alone, Middle England is a darkly comic look at our strange new world.
Crime and Social Change in Middle England offers a new way of looking at contemporary debates on the fear of crime. Using observation, interviews and documentary analysis it traces the reactions of citizens of one very ordinary town to events, conflicts and controversies around such topical subjects of criminological investigation as youth, public order, drugs, policing and home security in their community. In doing so it moves in place from comfortable suburbs to hard pressed inner city estates, from the affluent to the impoverished, from old people watching the town where they grew up change around them to young in-comers who are part of that change. This is a book which will give all students of crime a rare and fascinating insight into how issues at the heart of contemporary law and order politics both nationally and internationally actually play out on the ground.
'[A] Canterbury Tale for our times ... Everyone has something of value to impart, even the humblest; in some, there is a shining nobility.' Valerie Grove, The Times 'There is great ambition and equal skill in successfully communicating nothing more, nothing less, than the stuff of humanity. A real-life soap opera going on in Oxfordshire, with better stories by far than fiction' Bel Mooney, The Times 'As a writer, Mary Loudon has a precious gift. She can listen. And so, people tell her things they might otherwise lock inside their hearts. She follows in the footsteps of Tony Parker in Britain and Studs Terkel in America. Those men, like her, had ears as sharp as scalpels. At the end of her stories, the cliches have collapsed. Under the beeswaxed middle-class veneer, emotion eats into the woodwork: envy, pride, grief, ambition, despair. Above all, this is a chronicle of people's dreams; their hopes of what might have been and their regrets about what could have been.' Paul Barker, The Independent
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...
This book discusses the prejudices that have distorted understandings of the city of Milton Keynes and focuses upon the original thinking that went into the planning of Milton Keynes.
“Musicians often pay a high price for sharing their art with us. Underneath the glow of success can often lie loneliness and exhaustion, not to mention the basic struggles of paying the rent or buying food. Sally Anne Gross and George Musgrave raise important questions – and we need to listen to what the musicians have to tell us about their working conditions and their mental health.” Emma Warren (Music Journalist and Author). “Singing is crying for grown-ups. To create great songs or play them with meaning music's creators reach far into emotion and fragility seeking the communion we demand of it. However, music’s toll on musicians can leave deep scars. In this important book, Sa...
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 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, packed with thwarted romance, class struggles and teenage angst, The Rotter'...
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