Bücher von Jonathan Coe

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL OF THE YEAR 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, whilst in London his friend Doug doesn't understand why his teenage daughter is eternally enraged. Meanwhile, newlyweds Sophie and Ian can find nothing to agree on except the fact that their marriage is on the rocks . . .__________________'Coe's back with a bang. Middle England is the novel about Brexit we need' Daily Telegraph 'A pertinent, entertaining study of a nation in crisis' Financial Times, Books of the Year'Very funny. Coe - a writer of uncommon decency - reminds us that the way out of this mess is through moderation, through compromise, through that age-old English ability to laugh at ourselves' Observer

Probably the best English novelist of his generation Nick Hornby Jonathan Coes widely acclaimed novel is set in the 1970s against a distant backdrop of strikes, terrorist attacks and growing racial tension. A group of young friends inherit the editorship of their school magazine and begin to put their own distinctive spin onto events in the wider world. A zestful comedy of personal and social upheaval, The Rotters Club captures a fateful moment in British politics - the collapse of Old Labour - and imagines its impact on the topsy-turvy world of the bemused teenager: a world in which a lost pair of swimming trunks can be just as devastating as an IRA bomb. One of those sweeping, ambitious yet hugely readable, moving, richly comic novels that you find all too rarely in English fiction ... a masterpiece Daily Telegraph Downloadable, abridged audiobook edition read by Jeff Rawle.

From the bestselling author of Middle England and Mr Wilder and Me comes a brilliant new state of the nation novelIn the Birmingham suburb of Bournville, a family celebrate VE Day in 1945. With the joy of such an occasion there also come larger national questions about the nature of the horrific war the country has just been through. Following this family through generations as they navigate seventy-five years of drastic social change, from wartime nostalgia and English exceptionalism to the World Cup and coronavirus, domestic secrets and national myths leave characters and a country adrift, bewildered and divided.Bournville is the story of who we are - at our worst, and best. From bestselling author Jonathan Coe comes a novel of rare humour and humanity, a novel that holds up a mirror to our past and our present.

Jonathan Coes previous novel, The Rotters Club, was a novel of innocence: a nostalgic, humorous evocation of adolescent life in 1970s Britain. The Closed Circle is its mirror image: a novel of experience. On Millennium night, with Blair presiding over a superficially cool, sexed-up new version of the country, Benjamin Trotter finds himself watching the celebrations on his parents TV in the same Birmingham house in which he grew up. Watching, in fact, his younger brother, Paul, now a bright young New Labour MP who has bought wholeheartedly into the Blairite dream. Neither of them can know that their lives are about to implode. Set against the backdrop of Britains racial and social tensions and the countrys increasingly compromised role in Americas war against terrorism, The Closed Circle shuttles between London and Birmingham, taking in fat cats, media advisers and political protestors. As its characters struggle to make sense of the perennial problems of love, vocation and family in a changing world, it offers a bitter-sweet conclusion to the unfinished business of The Rotters Club. Wonderful, hilarious ... so appealing that the last cruel thing about it is the ending Daily Telegraph Downloadable abridged audiobook edition read by Jeff Rawle.

Ein großes Familienepos, das Erinnerungen weckt und uns lachen lässt - humorvoll, melancholisch und berührend.Die Krönung Elizabeths II., Wembley 1966, der "Schokoladenkrieg" zwischen England und der EU, James Bond und Prinzessin Diana, Brexit und Pandemie - das sind einige der Fixpunkte im langen Leben der Mary Lamb und ihrer weitverzweigten Familie. Mary ist Herz und Zentrum dieses Romans, als Tochter, Mutter und Großmutter. Das Beispiel von Marys Familie zeigt die Zerrissenheit Englands und gleichzeitig dessen Fähigkeit, in Krisensituationen zusammenzustehen. Nationalismus, latenter Rassismus, Tories oder Labour - die politischen Konflikte ziehen sich auch quer durch die Familie Lamb. Vielstimmig hören wir von Träumen, Enttäuschungen, aber auch vom Glück und der Liebe, die von Mary und den Ihren in der Kleinstadt Bournville gelebt werden.Der neue Roman von Bestsellerautor Jonathan Coe

Der Brexit spaltet die britische Gesellschaft und ganz Europa - Coes klug-ironische Komödie zeigt, wie es dazu kommen konnte. Benjamin Trotter zieht in eine romantische Wassermühle in die Grafschaft Shropshire, ins Herz des ländlichen England, um seinen Roman, an dem er schon 30 Jahre arbeitet, zu beenden. Seine Nichte Sophie fühlt sich im multikulturellen London zu Hause, lebt aber nach der Heirat mit ihrem Mann in der Provinz und spürt ein zunehmendes Unbehagen; ist auch er so fremdenfeindlich wie seine Mutter? Doug, Journalist und Labour-Anhänger, schämt sich für sein luxuriöses Leben im reichen Chelsea, das sich kaum jemand noch leisten kann. In den vermeintlich idyllischen Midlands mit festen Werten und Traditionen kommt eine bizarre Sehnsucht nach Englishness auf, und eine tiefe Kluft zieht in diesem abgehängten Landesteil durch alle menschlichen Beziehungen. Ab wann lief alles schief? Dieser unterhaltsame und fein gesponnene Gesellschaftsroman blickt tief in die Seele des englischen Wesens.

Geschichten, die den Wahnsinn bezeugen - ein irrwitziges Sittenbild Großbritanniens.Rachel und Alison, Freundinnen aus Kindertagen, machen sich auf eine Reise in das fremde, irreale Herz Großbritanniens. Hil¿os, mitgerissen von Strömen, die sie weder verstehen noch beein¿ussen können, finden die beiden eine von der Realität enttäuschte, doch den Reality-Shows innig zugetane Nation vor. Sie treffen auf moralisch bankrotte Bankiers, deren Keller mit Privatkinos, Hallenbädern und Weinlagern aufgemöbelt sind, und auf Menschen, die an der städtischen Essenstafel Schlange stehen. Mittendrin residiert eine alteingesessene Familie, die nichts für das eigene Land tut, aber alle Kraft darauf verwendet, dass das Land alles für ihren persönlichen Profit tut.

The downloadable audiobook edition of Jonathans Coe satirical masterpiece, What a Carve Up! A brilliant noir farce, a dystopian vision of Britain, a family history and the story of an obsession. Michael is a lonely, rather pathetic writer, obsessed by the film, What A Carve Up! in which a mad knifeman cuts his way through the inhabitants of a decrepit stately pile as the thunder rages. Inexplicably he is commissioned to write the family history of the Winshaws, an upper class Yorkshire clan whose members have a finger in every establishment pie, from arms dealing to art dealing, from politics to banking to the popular press and factory farming. During his researches Michael realises that the Winshaws have cast a blight on his life, as they have on Britain. His confidence, his sexual and personal identity begin to reform. In a climax set in the Winshaws family seat the novel turns into the film, What A Carve Up! as a murderous maniac stalks the family and Michael discovers the significance of Shirley Eatons lingerie. Everything a novel ought to be: courageous, challenging, funny, sad - and peopled with a fine troupe of characters The Times Abridged. Read by Alex Jennings.