Hornby, Nick Speaking With The Angel ISBN 13: 9780140296785

Speaking With The Angel - Softcover

9780140296785: Speaking With The Angel
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
A dozen of the most successful and popular writers today including: Helen Fielding, Robert Harris, Patrick Marber, Zadie Smith, John O'Farrell, Roddy Doyle, Melissa Bank and Irvine Welsh have written 6000-word fictional monologues along the lines of Alan Bennet's Talking Heads. And Colin Firth makes his début as a fiction writer. The result is a book of completely original stories that have heart, soul and wit. All the writers have given their work free, and Penguin is giving £1 per copy sold to the TreeHouse Trust, a charity which is setting up a unique school for autistic children

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
There are lots of reasons to buy Speaking with the Angel, an anthology of first-person narratives by bright, young, mostly British literati: these are smart and original stories, none of them previously published elsewhere. What's more, it's for a good cause. Nick Hornby, editor of the collection and author of one of the pieces, has an autistic son, and in a raw and wrenching introduction he stresses the importance of educational institutions to serve such children, who "have no language, and no particular compulsion to acquire it, who are born without the need to explore the world." Accordingly, a portion of each sale benefits autism charities around the world.

Still, this is a collection that stands on its own merits, and requires no act of charity to purchase. In Roddy Doyle's "The Slave," for example, a 42-year-old family man discovers a dead rat on his kitchen floor, and this unwelcome incursion from the natural world plunges him into a midlife crisis. In "Last Requests," Giles Smith introduces us to a prison cook who specializes in, well, last suppers. It's both hilarious and shocking to encounter this egomaniacal chef on the job:

They can have what they like, within reason, up to a maximum of three courses, with coffee or tea and a piece of confectionary or a biscuit if they want it. No alcohol, for obvious reasons. Obviously, you'll get the jokers, like the one who said he wanted a whole roast pig with an apple in its mouth. Or the governor's head, one of them said he wanted.
Elsewhere, in Hornby's own "NippleJesus," a skinhead bouncer becomes a museum guard and falls for the painting he's charged to protect, a crucifixion collage made up of thousands of tiny breasts cut out of porn magazines. The stories in Speaking with the Angel all feel up to the minute, abounding with references to politics and popular culture. Yet the obscenity and slang ultimately amount to a form of bluster, an acknowledgement of the intrinsic fragility that all 12 of these narrators share. --Victoria Jenkins
About the Author:
Nick Hornby is the author of six bestselling novels (High Fidelity, About a Boy, How To Be Good, A Long Way Down, Juliet, Naked and Funny Girl), as well as a novel for young adults, Slam, and four works of acclaimed non-fiction: Fever Pitch, 31 Songs, The Complete Polysyllabic Spree and Stuff I've Been Reading. He has written the screenplays for the films Fever Pitch, Wild, Brooklyn and An Education, which was nominated for an Oscar. He lives in Highbury, north London.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherPenguin UK
  • Publication date2000
  • ISBN 10 0140296786
  • ISBN 13 9780140296785
  • BindingPaperback
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages256
  • EditorHornby Nick
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9781573228589: Speaking with the Angel

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9781573228589
Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2001
Softcover

  • 9780241957240: Speaking with the Angel

    Viking, 2011
    Softcover

  • 9780140297799: Speaking with the Angel

    London..., 2000
    Softcover

  • 9781573228817: Speaking with the Angel

    Riverh..., 2001
    Softcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Hornby, Nick
Published by Penguin Books, Limited (UK) (2000)
ISBN 10: 0140296786 ISBN 13: 9780140296785
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Ergodebooks
(Houston, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # DADAX0140296786

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 28.70
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Hornby, Nick
Published by Penguin UK (2000)
ISBN 10: 0140296786 ISBN 13: 9780140296785
New Soft cover First Edition Signed Quantity: 1
Seller:
Dubliners Books
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Soft cover. Condition: New. No Jacket. 1st Edition. 1st/F/As New/Signed Paperback Original with stories by Patrick Marber, Nick Hornby, Dave Eggers, Helen Fielding, Roddy Doyle, Colin Firth, Zadie Smith and others. Shipped bubble-wrapped in a box, not a padded envelope. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # ABE-3919914152

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 25.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 15.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds