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Tony Parsons Man and Boy
Harpercollins Pb 0006512135 / 9780006512134 PAPERBACK Good
0006512135 Review n'Wistful, touching and funny, it looks back at the glory days of the family without losing hope for the future. In the end, it is a deeply touching book: a love letter to a son from his father, and to a father from his son' Mail on Sunday 'One of the finest books published this year! Hilarious and tear-jerking in turns' Express 'Parsons has written a sharp, witty and wise book straight from his heart. His characters are all nitty-gritty, bounce-off-the-page, real people; his dialogue is brilliant' Daily Mail 'A touching novel! full of quiet tenderness, and written from the heart' Independent n nProduct Description nA fabulously engaging and exciting novel about a man who has to learn about life and love the hard way. Harry Silver has it all. A successful job in TV, a gorgeous wife, a lovely child. And in one moment of madness, he chucks it all away. Man and Boy is the story of how he comes to terms with his life and achieves a degree of self-respect, bringing up his son alone and, gradually, learning what words like love and family really mean. It is very well written, pacy, funny, and heart-breakingly moving.
Price:
6.05 EUR
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Tony Parsons One For My Baby
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 0007135696 / 9780007135691 PAPERBACK Very Good
0007135696 Amazon.co.uk Review nIn One for My Baby Hong-Kong-based language teacher Alfie Budd is about to ingest several gallons of the stuff. Returning to London to nurse a broken heart, he finds a world he barely recognises. Terry Wogan plays REM on Radio Two, there are Tai Chi classes on Highbury Fields and the England of Alfie's youth seems a distant dream. Alfie's father is now sporting disco gear and pitifully clinging onto his relationship with a Czech au pair half his age. Alfie's mother, meanwhile, cares a great deal about her rose bushes and not at all about getting her husband back. n nDazed by these changes, Alfie drifts--on a cloud of Tsingtao beer and Sinatra-fuelled reverie--into a new teaching job and into a string of pointless affairs with his students. But a man can only drift for so long before he starts to sink--and Alfie must learn some bitter lessons before he can regain the happiness he once knew in Hong Kong. n nTony Parsons' second novel deserves to match the phenomenal success of his first, Man and Boy--although there are reasons why it might not. One for My Baby lacks the cutesy appeal of single fathers bringing up sons and some readers may find it--with its double portion of deaths and mid-life depressions--a more demanding read altogether. The book deals with tough realities, with people who have ceased to love themselves and each other, with snobbery and prejudice and the acute loneliness of city life. But the tale is redeemed, ultimately, because humour and warmth pervade even its darkest corners. The laughable antics of Alfie's father are balanced beautifully by George Chang, Alfie's serene and dignified Tai Chi instructor. And while our hero's journey is an arduous one, we are invited to laugh with and at him and never to pity him. Mr Parsons deserves praise for creating a book that is not merely different to his first but also bigger, tougher and cleverer. --Matthew Baylis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. n nProduct Description nThis is the story of a man who believes in all the British values of a stiff upper lip and keeping emotion in check. He also believes you can only truly love one person in your life, and he loses that love when his wife dies. Eventually he meets a woman who turns all his ideas upside down. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
Price:
4.84 EUR
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Tony Parsons One For My Baby
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 0007135696 / 9780007135691 PAPERBACK Good
0007135696 Amazon.co.uk Review nIn One for My Baby Hong-Kong-based language teacher Alfie Budd is about to ingest several gallons of the stuff. Returning to London to nurse a broken heart, he finds a world he barely recognises. Terry Wogan plays REM on Radio Two, there are Tai Chi classes on Highbury Fields and the England of Alfie's youth seems a distant dream. Alfie's father is now sporting disco gear and pitifully clinging onto his relationship with a Czech au pair half his age. Alfie's mother, meanwhile, cares a great deal about her rose bushes and not at all about getting her husband back. n nDazed by these changes, Alfie drifts--on a cloud of Tsingtao beer and Sinatra-fuelled reverie--into a new teaching job and into a string of pointless affairs with his students. But a man can only drift for so long before he starts to sink--and Alfie must learn some bitter lessons before he can regain the happiness he once knew in Hong Kong. n nTony Parsons' second novel deserves to match the phenomenal success of his first, Man and Boy--although there are reasons why it might not. One for My Baby lacks the cutesy appeal of single fathers bringing up sons and some readers may find it--with its double portion of deaths and mid-life depressions--a more demanding read altogether. The book deals with tough realities, with people who have ceased to love themselves and each other, with snobbery and prejudice and the acute loneliness of city life. But the tale is redeemed, ultimately, because humour and warmth pervade even its darkest corners. The laughable antics of Alfie's father are balanced beautifully by George Chang, Alfie's serene and dignified Tai Chi instructor. And while our hero's journey is an arduous one, we are invited to laugh with and at him and never to pity him. Mr Parsons deserves praise for creating a book that is not merely different to his first but also bigger, tougher and cleverer. --Matthew Baylis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. n nProduct Description nThis is the story of a man who believes in all the British values of a stiff upper lip and keeping emotion in check. He also believes you can only truly love one person in your life, and he loses that love when his wife dies. Eventually he meets a woman who turns all his ideas upside down. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
Price:
4.84 EUR
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Tony Parsons One for My Baby
Harpercollins Pb 0006514812 / 9780006514817 PAPERBACK Very Good
0006514812 Editorial Reviews nFrom Publishers Weekly nThis third novel from the author of the immensely appealing Man and Boy is the amusing story of sad sack Alfie, who has returned to London from Hong Kong following the death of his wife, Rose, the one and only true love of his life, in a scuba diving accident. Alfie, 34, is given to making sensitive, introspective remarks such as she was my reason and That's what love did to me. Love messed up my heart. An affable enough fellow, he's barely living life in his skin as an English language teacher at Churchill's International School, narcissistically sleeping with his students while trying to cope with his parents' breakup and his grandmother's illness and death. Of course, he gradually comes out of his sleepwalking existence to recognize the error of his ways and begin down a path of spiritual fulfillment that includes tai chi instruction and the insight of professional TV wrestler the Slab and his book, Smell the Fear, He-Bitch. There are some lovely moments in the novel, when the author subtly reveals the details of Alfie's loss, mixed in with some clever humor, such as when he plays on the class differences between Alfie's lawyer pal Josh and Alfie's cleaning woman girlfriend, a romance that heads somewhat predictably in the direction of Pygmalion and Educating Rita. At its best, the novel is enjoyable fluff. One only wishes the author had created in Alfie a more dynamic character worthier of the reader's sympathies. nCopyright ? Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Booklist nPopular British author Parsons' third novel to be published in the U.S. (after Man and Boy [2001] and Man and Wife [2003]) is a heartfelt, true-to-life look at a young man grappling with the death of his wife. Alfie Budd found The One when he met Rose in Hong Kong. But when a tragic accident takes her away from him forever, he is completely lost. He returns to his parents' home in London only to discover his father, the best-selling author of a memoir about growing up poor, is having an affair with the family's au pair. Alfie finally gets himself a job teaching English as a second language to immigrants, and there he discovers a bevy of women who are willing to sleep with him. But it isn't until he meets Jackie Day, a tough young cleaning lady who wants him to be her literature teacher so that she can go to the university, that he actually starts to feel again. Like Parsons' other novels, this one deals with a man having to grow up and move on and is filled with details and observations that are moving, painful, and compellingly true. Another winner from Parsons. Kristine Huntley nCopyright ? American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Price:
4.84 EUR
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