Bournville: From the bestselling author of Middle England

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short review for busy readers: Definitely not one of Coe's best. Good concept and well-written, but muddled and tedious in plot, overly biased/blatant in approach, and lazy in the characterisation of too many characters who are only shades different from each other, with very few exceptions. Slow read. Not recommended, esp not as a place to start with Coe's work. For all the novel's satirical tang and historical sweep, it's at root a tender portrait of apparently simple folk trying to fathom the mystery of their own personalities * Spectator * Coe does his ending well enough, but much of it does feel more strained than the easier-flowing other parts of the novel. As ever, prizing clarity over verbal fireworks, Coe’s writing draws the reader into the family dramas as they unfold over the decades. He has the great gift of combining plausible and engaging human stories with a deeper structural pattern that gives the book its heft.

Told with compassion, steadiness, decency and always a glint in the eye, this is a novel that both challenges and delights. For anyone who has felt lost in the past six years, it is like meeting an ally Rachel Joyce, author of Miss Benson's Beetle Robin (10 April 2019). "Jonathan Coe wins BAUER award 2019 in Italy". Felicity Bryan Associates . Retrieved 10 April 2023. If Peter does find happiness, Bridget -- though otherwise happily married -- never gets the acceptance from too many of the members of the family that she deserves.Coe has the great gift of combining engaging human stories with a deeper structural pattern that gives the book its heft * Guardian * This is fine, except Coe clearly hates the monarchy - or at least thinks it's utter nonsense - so all he does is have his characters snark and gripe about it in response...except the insensitive, racist Tory piglets who just love the royals. Oink, oink. Aren't they repulsive! 🙄

Coe has the great gift of combining engaging human stories with a deeper structural pattern that gives the book its heft GuardianOxfam books blog: Jonathan Coe and William Sutcliffe create window displays for the Oxfam Bloomsbury Bookshop". Archived from the original on 8 June 2011. At heart Bournville is a novel designed to make you think by making you laugh, and the seriousness of the subject matter is tempered throughout by the author's piercing eye for the more ludicrous elements of human nature New Statesman There are a few running themes in this book, in addition to the family one.There are seven key events, which are the individual chapters, in that what happens in the chapters happens around these events. Four of them directly concern the British royal family and while the other three do not, the royal family plays a minor role in each one. Perhaps Coe should have waited for the key royal family event of this century – the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the accession to the throne of her son King Charles III.

A tender portrayal of the state of the nation through the prism of family relationships Woman & Home Then an 11-year-old growing up in the literal shadow of the Cadbury's factory, and the metaphorical shadow of WW2, we follow Mary as she grows up, finds love and work and has a relatively normal British life. A life full of dreams connections, happiness, the odd regret. British author Jonathan Coe, European Book Prize 2019 winner". France24. 9 December 2019 . Retrieved 28 November 2021.

Another son, Peter, takes ages before he can fully accept, and act on the fact, that he is homosexual. He has written a short children's adaptation of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, and a children's story called The Broken Mirror. Both titles are published in Italy only, as La storia di Gulliver (2011) and Lo specchio dei desideri (2012).