The oft-used adjectives--"rollicking," "uproarious," "zany," etc.--don't half do justice to the world John Andrew Fredrick has created in his The King of Good Intentions trilogy. In this, the final volume of the series, the author's madcap, kaleidoscopic, dazzling take on love (and love triangles) and life and an up-and-coming indie rock band called The Weird Sisters in 90's Los Angeles comes full circle as the story of principal bandmates and paramours John and Jenny (plus the mysterious ...

Set in Los Angeles in the early 90s, the novel chronicles the early days of an indie band as they meet, practice, make their first record, and get their first break/big gig. It’s also the story of the the flowering love affair between John and Jenny, the two charming if troubled guitarists/singers in the band. John is by day a misanthropic substitute teacher in the zany, sometimes horrific LA Unified School District; Jenny is an mysterious recovering child prodigy. Along the way, the coupl...

"A great fund of comic invention." - Times Literary Supplement"Written with great spirit . . . very funny . . . fresh, unhackneyed and excellently observed." - Listener"[A] bustling kaleidoscope of a book, by an author fertile in expedient, keenly observant and occasionally probing the heart of darkness." - Sunday TimesCharles Lumley feels that he has been born in captivity - the captivity of his smugly conventional bourgeois upbringing. Now he has just graduated fr...

As middle classes in developing countries grow in size and political power, do they foster stable democracies and prosperous, innovative economies? Or do they encourage crass materialism, bureaucratic corruption, unrealistic social demands, and ideological polarization? These questions have taken on a new urgency in recent years but they are not new, having first appeared in the mid twentieth century in debates about Latin America. At a moment when exploding middle classes in the global So...