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, whils...

**'My comfort read: anything by Jonathan Coe' Bob Mortimer'Coe channels his anger and frustration at the direction his country has taken, as well as his abiding love for it, into prose of enduring beauty' Guardian---**Post-university life doesn’t suit Phyl. Time passes slowly, living with her parents and working a zero-hours contract at Heathrow Airport, while her budding plans of becoming a writer are going nowhere.That is, until family friend Chri...

'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 t...

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...

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 h...

A wickedly funny take on life under the Thatcher government by the prize-winning author of Bournvlile.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 ...

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,...

A STUNNING, HEARTFELT NEW NOVEL ABOUT A DECADES-LONG FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN TWO COMPOSERS FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE, BOURNVILLE AND MIDDLE ENGLANDThe year is 1907 and Maurice Ravel is one of the most admired young composers in France. In Belle Epoque Paris he cuts a charismatic, dandyish figure, whose technically flawless music hides a deep emotional core, and whose unpredictable talent is as hard to pin down as his my...

The Dwarves of Death is a hilarious black comedy by Jonathan CoeWilliam has a lot on his mind. Firstly, there's The Alaska Factory, the band he plays in. They're no good, and they make his songs sound about as groovy as an unimpressed record. In fact they're so bad he's seriously thinking of leaving to join a group called The Unfortunates.Secondly, there's Madeline, his high-maintenance girlfriend whose idea of a night of passion is an Andrew Lloyd...

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 n...

Expo 58 - Good-looking girls and sinister spies: a naive Englishman at loose in Europe in Jonathan Coe's brilliant comic novelLondon, 1958: unassuming civil servant Thomas Foley is plucked from his desk at the Central Office of Information and sent on a six-month trip to Brussels. His task: to keep an eye on The Brittania, a brand new pub which will form the heart of the British presence at Expo 58 - the biggest World's Fair of the century, and the first t...

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 direc...