This is a novel about the hundreds of tiny connections between the public and private worlds and how they affect us all.
It's about the legacy of war and the end of innocence.
It's about how comedy and politics are battling it out and comedy might have won.
It's about how 140 characters can make fools of us all.
It's about living in a city where bankers need cinemas in their basements and others need food banks down the street.
It is Jonathan Coe doing what he does best - showing us how we live now.
'Coe is among the handful of novelists who can tell us something about the temper of our times' Observer
Jonathan Coe was born a few miles from Bournville in 1961. The author of political satires such as What a Carve Up! and Number 11, and family sagas such as The Rotters' Club and The Rain Before It Falls, his novels have won prizes at home and abroad, including Costa Novel of the Year and the Prix du Livre Europeen (both for Middle England).
Title: Number 11
Author: Coe, Jonathan
ISBN: 9780241967010
Binding:
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Publication Date: 2016-04-07
Number of Pages: 368
Weight: 0.2541 kg
Coe is back doing what he does best. Number 11 is a baroquely plotted, densely allusive, heart-on-his-sleeve, state-of-the-nation satire, an angry and exuberant book....Coe is not just back, but back on top form * Sunday Times *
You can't stop reading....I was haunted for days * The Independent *
Coe's prose is always a delight...hugely enjoyable * Daily Mail *
Jonathan Coe has established himself as one of the most entertaining chroniclers of our times. . . He has an enviable lightness of touch and is brilliant at portraying the lunacy of our time, when bankers need iceberg houses and their neighbours need food banks. He is often satirical, always compassionate. * Tatler *
He brings us the usual high quotient of jokes, emotional engagement with the characters and commitment to old-school storytelling, complete with narrative twists and thrilling set pieces * The Daily Telegraph *
An incredibly Dickensian novel...it articulates all kinds of themes that will make the reader feel very angry...I enjoyed it hugely and read it pretty much in a single sitting. Whenever there was an interruption I felt really angry and you can't really ask more from a novel than that...Really satisfying -- Tom Holland, BBC Radio 4
Jonathan Coe rips into modern celebrity culture and the decadent lives of the super-rich in hs latest satire * Good Housekeeping *
A restlessness would overtake me when I was separated from the book -- Kit Davis, BBC Radio 4
No modern novelist is better at charting the precariousness of middle-class life * The Observer *
Coe creeps up stealthily, delivering a book bursting with narrative coups and delicious ironies. Presenting a picture of an ailing country close to collapse, despite the apparent health suggested by its millionaires' mansions and its confidently callous politicians, the book scares rather than laughs us into calling for reform * Literary Review *
Coe intriguingly depicts the social grievances of modern Britain * Metro *
My first Jonathan Coe book but it won't be the last...gloriously insane...It takes you into another space and time....Very beautiful -- Kerry Shale, BBC Radio 4
It's dispiriting that, for a country that prides itself on its sense of humour, Coe has not been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.....Read Number 11 to see what an odd country Britain has become * T2 *
[Coe] has a fine ear for dialogue and mastery of comic plot: this is first-class entertainment * Evening Standard *
The country needs Number 11....[Coe's] take-down of modern Britain proves he's still the UK's premiere national lampoon * Stylist *
Number 11 is undoubtedly a political novel. It is also an interrogation of the purposes and efficacy of humour in exposing society's ills * Guardian *
A richly enjoyable, densely textured and thought-provoking entertainment, Number 11 might not feature in many Kensington mansions, Swiss bolt-holes or private jets this winter. But perhaps it should' * Financial Times *
What Victorians called a condition of England novel...This sequel is a very good book indeed - let's hope that Coe goes for a trilogy * The Times *
Richly textured * Esquire *
Undoubtedly a political novel. It is also an interrogation of the purposes and efficacy of humour in exposing society's ills * Guardian *
[A] state-of-the-nation address * Independent on Sunday *
Jonathan Coe has taken aim at the absurdity of modern life * Sport *
