A merchant seaman is the sole survivor when his ship is sunk in a battle in the South Pacific. Badly burned, he is stripped of every shred of identity and cast into the sea, naked, faceless, nameless. Rescued and lying in a Pearl Harbor hospital, he is mistakenly identified as the missing Lt. Ben Davenant by Davenant's wife. In the moment, the man decides to go along, to take on Davenant's identity, to return with her to California and take on his life.Mortal Leap may remind some r...

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE ROTTERS' CLUB AND MIDDLE ENGLAND In the heady summer of 1977, a naïve young woman called Calista sets out from Athens to venture into the wider world. On a Greek island that has been turned into a film set, she finds herself working for the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost nothing. But the time she spends in this glamorous, unfamiliar new life will change her for good. While Calista is t...

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 abo...

Birmingham, England, c. 1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, corrosive class warfare, adolescent angst, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by guitar rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school. As the world appears to self-destruct around them, they hold together to navigate the choppy waters of a decidedly ambiguous decade.

A blisteringly funny political critique wrapped up in a murder mystery, from one of Britain's most beloved novelistsPost-university life doesn't suit Phyl. Time passes slowly living back home with her parents, working a zero-hour contract serving Japanese food to tourists at Heathrow's Terminal 5. As for her budding plans of becoming a writer, those are going nowhere.That is, until family friend Chris comes to stay. He's been on the path to uncover a sinist...

Over a career that spanned forty-three years and seventy-seven films, Jimmy Stewart went from leading man to national idol. Classics such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, Harvey, and, of course, It’s A Wonderful Life are far more than mere movies; they are visions of America as it wanted to be seen. With his inimitable (though widely mimicked) down-home drawl, Jimmy Stewart came to embody the ideal American male, lean, affably sar...

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.

A tender and wickedly funny portrait of England told through four generations of one family.Bournville is a quiet village in the heart of England famous for its chocolate. For eleven-year-old Mary, it is the center of her world, the place where most of her family's friends and neighbors have worked for decades and where the streets smell faintly of chocolate.During the next three-quarters of a century, Mary will have children and grandchildren and great-chi...

Beginning in the early years of this century, Number 11 follows two friends, Alison and Rachel, as they come of age. As the narrative progresses from the aftermath of the Iraq War to the present day, its scope broadens to include others who are variously connected to these two girls: Alison’s mother, a has-been singer, competes on a grisly reality TV show; Rachel’s university mentor finally confronts her late husband’s obsessive search for a German film he saw as a child; a young ...

Maxwell Sim can’t seem to make a single meaningful connection. His absent father was always more interested in poetry; he maintains an e-mail correspondence with his estranged wife, though under a false identity; his incomprehensible teenage daughter prefers her BlackBerry to his conversation; and his best friend since childhood is refusing to return his calls. He has seventy-four friends on Facebook, but nobody to talk to.In an attempt to stir himself out of this horrible rut, Max...

Jonathan Coe's Pentatonic is a daring and original story about family and memory inspired by music.When a family celebrates the prize-giving day at their daughter's secondary school, thoughts turn to their own childhoods. The father remembers his living room piano recital, recorded on a well-worn cassette tape. The mother remembers her own father's war tragedy. As the father searches for the physical reminder of his past and the mother longs to forget her ...

A dream of a novel."--Erica Wagner, The Times (London)Following The Winshaw Legacy--Coe's ecstatically reviewed American debut, winner of the John Lewellyn Rhys Prize in England and France's coveted Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger--comes this beguiling, eccentric entertainment.Ashdown--a vast clifftop manor on the English coast--was once a university residence, where a group of students met briefly before going their separate ways. Twelve years later, it has been tran...