The hilarious 1980s political satire by Jonathan Coe, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year: Newspaper
A novel about the hundreds of tiny connections between the public and private worlds and how they affect us. It is about: the legacy of war and the end of innocence; how comedy and politics are battli
For Maria, nothing is certain. Her life is a chain of accidents. Friendship passes her by, and she's unimpressed by the devoted Ronny and his endless proposals of marriage. Maria lives in a world of h
Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events; Robert has had his life changed for ever by the misunderstandings arising from her condition; and Terry, the insomniac
A zestful comedy of personal and social upheaval, this book captures a fateful moment in British politics - the collapse of 'Old Labour' - and imagines its impact on the topsy-turvy world of the bemus
Maxwell Sim seems to have hit rock bottom: separated from his wife and daughter, estranged from his father, and with no one to confide in even though he has 74 friends on Facebook. He's not even sure
As a young girl, Rosamond is sent to Shropshire to escape the Blitz. Here, in the countryside, she forms a close bond with her older cousin, Beatrix, a young woman haunted by anger and resentment.Sixt
London, 1958: unassuming civil servant Thomas Foley is plucked from his desk job and sent on a six-month trip to Brussels. His task: to keep an eye on The Britannia, a brand new pub which will form th
Tells the tale of Benjamin Trotter and his friends' coming of age during the 1970s is a heartfelt celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up. Featuring, among other things, IRA bombs, prog rock
It's the end of the century and Benjamin Trotter and friends are all grown up. Life is a ceaseless whirl of jobs, marriages, kids - and self-inflicted angst. Despite the shiny optimism of Blair's Brit
William 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 ba
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; Ro
Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events; Robert has his life changed for ever by the misunderstandings arising from her condition; and Terry, the insomniac, sp
Robin, a postgraduate student in Coventry, has spent four and a half years not writing his thesis. He and his academic colleagues, united by pallor, social ineptitude and sexual inexperience, once spe
For 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 h
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 on
Maxwell Sim has, unknowingly, got a long way to go. If he knew now about his lonely journey to the Shetland Isles, or the truth about his father and the folded photograph, or the mystery of Poppy and
