Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2003
ISBN 10: 1862075832 ISBN 13: 9781862075832
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Neal Ascherson is one of Britain's finest writers in an undefinable genre that fuses history, memoir, politics and meditations on places. His books on Poland and his collected essays on the strange Britain to which he returned from Europe in the mid-1980s were deeply influential. In 1995, Black Sea won critical praise in many languages and several literary prizes. Stone Voices is Ascherson's return to his native Scotland. It is an exploration of Scottish identity, but this is no journalistic rumination on the future of that small nation. Ascherson instead weaves together a story of the deep past - the time of geology and archaeology, of myth and legend - with the story of modern Scotland and its rebirth. Few writers in these islands have his ability to write so well about the natural context of history. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2013
ISBN 10: 1847088031 ISBN 13: 9781847088031
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A boy eats his way to self-discovery while another must battle the reality-brandishing monster preying on his fantasy realm. Meanwhile, an aerobics instructor, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, makes the most shocking leap imaginable to save her soul. Bold, hilarious and darkly affecting, Lipsyte's stories combine the tragicomic dazzle of his beloved novels and the compressed vitality of his classic debut collection. The Fun Parts is Lipsyte at his best - an exploration of new voices and vistas from a writer Time magazine has said 'everyone should read'. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2012
ISBN 10: 1846272807 ISBN 13: 9781846272806
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. "A poignant tale about guilt, blame and love in a time of tragedy" Stylist It is an early spring evening in 1943 when the air-raid sirens wail out over the East End of London. From every corner of Bethnal Green, people emerge from pubs, cinemas and houses and set off for the shelter of the tube station. But at the entrance steps, something goes badly wrong, the crowd panics, and 173 people are crushed to death. When an enquiry is called for, it falls to the local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to find out what happened during those few, fatally confused minutes. But as Dunne gathers testimony from the guilt-stricken warden of the shelter, the priest struggling to bring comfort to his congregation, and the grieving mother who has lost her youngest daughter, the picture grows ever murkier. The more questions Dunne asks, the more difficult it becomes to disentangle truth from rumour, and to decide just how much truth the damaged community can actually bear. It is only decades later, when the case is reopened by one of the children who survived, that the facts can finally be brought to light. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2016
ISBN 10: 1783781599 ISBN 13: 9781783781591
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Sharp-tongued, fearsome Paulina meets lovely, listless Fran one night at a house party held near their privileged New England art school. Together they drift through their classes, critique their fellow students, lavish attention on their curls and nurture their shared dreams of genius. But when their burgeoning friendship tips from intensity into enmity our two heroines find themselves cast out from the halcyon days of art school, divided from one another and set adrift in the increasingly disappointing world of adulthood. Written with wit and brio, dancing between razor-sharp satire and a tender portrait of unrequited love, Paulina & Fran is a beguiling whirl of a novel from a writer of immense talent. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2016
ISBN 10: 1846276152 ISBN 13: 9781846276156
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Riot police patrol the borders, bodies of drowned children wash up on holiday beaches, a humanitarian disaster unfolds in refugee settlements: this is the European Union today. But how did a bloc that was founded on the values of human rights and dignity for all reach this point? And what was driving more than a million desperate people to risk their lives on the Mediterranean in the hope of finding sanctuary? Charlotte McDonald-Gibson has spent years reporting on every aspect of Europe's refugee crisis, and Cast Away offers a vivid glimpse into the personal dilemmas, pressures, choices and hopes that lie beneath the headlines. Here, we meet five people forced from their homelands, including Nart, a Syrian lawyer who becomes an underground activist fighting the Assad regime until the risk of imprisonment and torture becomes too great. Sina is newly married and heavily pregnant when she finds herself travelling alone across three continents to escape the Eritrean dictatorship. And Hanan watches in horror as the safe world she built for her four children in Damascus collapses, and she has to entrust their lives to people smugglers. While the politicians wrangle over responsibility, and the media talk in statistics, Cast Away brings to life the human consequences of the most urgent issue of our time. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2011
ISBN 10: 1847084281 ISBN 13: 9781847084286
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Diana Athill's childhood was idyllic, brought up in the Norfolk countryside. Aged only fifteen, she fell in love with a young undergraduate. They travelled to Oxford, engaged to be married. Then everything fell apart in the cruellest possible way. In this classic modern memoir, Diana Athill dissects the terrible consequences of loss and her struggle to rebuild a personality destroyed by sadness. Yet for all its unhappiness, Instead of a Letter remains a story of hope, written with the frank intelligence and lack of self-pity that have become the hallmarks of Athill's writing. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2003
ISBN 10: 0903141582 ISBN 13: 9780903141581
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. As with the first two Young British Novelists issues, Granta's 2003 list was compelling and prescient. The issue introduced readers to fiction by Zadie Smith, David Mitchell and Monica Ali. From Ben Rice's story of marital crises among Koi fanciers to Hari Kunzru's account of the development of a Bollywood-inspired computer virus, the issue showcases the multifacetedness and vibrancy of contemporary British literature. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2001
ISBN 10: 186207464X ISBN 13: 9781862074644
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. For 21 years Granta magazine has aimed to publish the best of contemporary fiction, memoir, reportage and travel writing, using a cross section of different writers to express the diversity and originality of talent. Among those to have featured in the publication include Harold Pinter, Hanif Kureishi and Martha Gellhorn. This anthology takes 21 landmark pieces from each year of the magazine, so bringing together classic pieces from its past and charting its history. An introduction by the editor of Granta, Ian Jack, puts the work in context. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2000
ISBN 10: 1862073309 ISBN 13: 9781862073302
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Noah, an orphan with no past, has run a community centre for the past twenty years, but faced with immiment closure, he begins to image the story of the man he would have liked to have been - the charismatic and magical Mr George whose impact on the town in the 1930s is the stuff of local legend. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2007
ISBN 10: 1846270464 ISBN 13: 9781846270468
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. It is October 1918 and London is gathering in its dead. For Henry Speake, of Speake & Son Undertakers, laying to rest the shattered young bodies of those sent home from the Front to die has become a grimly familiar duty. But what he is seeing now, as influenza claims its victims with increasing speed and force, is something different, and for the first time in his life, Henry feels afraid of death. Unable to share his fears with his waspish, disapproving sisters, Henry turns instead to Mrs Allen Thompson, a recently widowed school teacher, so beginning a friendship which gradually, stumblingly, pulls them in a direction neither is prepared for. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2011
ISBN 10: 1847084710 ISBN 13: 9781847084712
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Which champagne should you pour at your Christmas party? How do you make a Sidecar or a Clementine Campari? Which will warm you up best after a frosty walk: spiced apple juice, spiced coffee, or hot buttered rum? Which wines work best with Christmas dinner? The author of the delightful and hugely successful How to Drink here tells you how to drink in the season of dark and chill (Swedish glogg), parties (sloe gin fizz, anyone?) and runny noses (an invigorating rosemary infusion or hot honey and lemon). Celebratory and warming, How to Drink at Christmas is a must for the festive season. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2008
ISBN 10: 1847080693 ISBN 13: 9781847080691
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Good. 'There is a sense throughout Athill's work that you are making a new friend as much as reading a new story . a delight to read' Observer WINNER OF THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY PRIZE, the moving and witty memoir on what it means to grow old. Written in her nineties, when she was free from any inhibitions she may have once had, Diana Athill reflects frankly on the losses and occasionally the gains that old age can bring, and on the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. Lively, fearless and humorous, Somewhere Towards the End encapsulates the vibrant final decades of Athill's life. Filled with events, love and friendships, this is a memoir about maintaining hope, joy and vigour in later life, resisting regret, and questioning the beliefs and customs of your own generation. 'Informative, honest and lacking in the usual sorrow over old age. A remarkable woman' Beryl Bainbridge 'An honest joy to read' Alice Munro 'The book is a moving and humorous account of old age, unsparing about its indignities, unflinching from the inevitability that the end can not be many years away, but full of joy at the way life keeps on, at the most unexpected moments, renewing itself' Irish Times 'Her brilliant book is entirely lacking in the usual regrets, nostalgia and Hovis-ad recollections of old-timers. It is a little literary gem, penned by a marvellous, feisty old character . What a treasure' Daily Mail. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2009
ISBN 10: 1846270642 ISBN 13: 9781846270642
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. In this unique book, part eulogy, part history, part travelogue, Charlie English goes in search of the best snow on the planet. Along the way he explains the extraordinary hold this commonplace phenomenon has over us, and reveals the ongoing drama of our relationship with it. Combining on-the-slopes experience with off-piste research, Charlie English's journey begins with the magical moment when his two-year-old son sees snow for the first time, before setting off in the footsteps of the Romantic poets over the Alps, following the sled-tracks of the Inuit across Greenland, and meeting up with a flurry of fellow enthusiasts, from snow-making scientists in Japan and global warming experts in California to plough drivers in Alaska.This is a book for anyone who reaches for their mittens at the sight of the first flake. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2005
ISBN 10: 1862077274 ISBN 13: 9781862077270
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. John Philips introduces the Marquis de Sade's highly original and thoroughly subversive depiction of human sexuality and the philosophical and political thinking that underpins it. He shows how, though Sade's work continues to shock, it can also be seen as the logical conclusion of eighteenth-century materialism. As the only writer of his time who dared to put the body at the centre of philosophy, Sade has a unique place in the history of modern thought. Extracts are taken form the whole range of Sade's writings, including The 120 Days of Sodom, Philosophy in the Boudoir, Juliette and his Last Will and Testament. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2008
ISBN 10: 186207996X ISBN 13: 9781862079960
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Human beings have long been both fascinated and appalled by randomness. On the one hand, we love the thrill of a surprise party or the freedom of not knowing what tomorrow will bring. We are inexplicably delighted by strange coincidences and striking similarities. But we also hate uncertainty's dark side. From cancer to bird flu, diseases may strike with no apparent pattern. Terrorists attack, airplanes crash, bridges collapse, and we never know if we'll be that one-in-a-million statistic. In this entertaining look at the world of probabilities, Jeffrey Rosenthal, maths professor and improvisational comedian, explains the mechanics of randomness in fields as diverse as poker hands, email spam, crime statistics, opinion polls and lottery jackpots. Read Struck by Lightning and, chances are, you will never look at the world the same way again. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2022
ISBN 10: 1783786310 ISBN 13: 9781783786312
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. 'Austin Duffy's uniquely dry, laconic style adds a subversive and compelling charge to this moving and intense story of the relationship between a father and daughter. A terrific novel' William Boyd Wolf travels to New York with his daughter to scatter the ashes of his recently estranged wife, Miriam. Buffeted by the loss, his fraught relationship with his daughter and the antagonism of Miriam's conservative Jewish family, Wolf is also coming to terms with a burgeoning concern of his own: growing dislocations in his mind, and the hollowing out of his memories. Set across the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Ten Days is a tender, nuanced and beautifully crafted story of a father's reckoning with his daughter and a profound, compelling meditation on family, time and the bonds of marriage. 'An absolutely beautiful book about time and mortality, love and memory, in which heartbreaking sadness and dry humour are held in exquisite tension' Carys Davies. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2011
ISBN 10: 1847081347 ISBN 13: 9781847081346
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Twelve great authors offer their top tips on gardening, from Sylvia Plath's struggles with autumn bulbs, to Pablo Neruda on pruning roses at the end of a romance. In Brecht's mini opera, a courageous mother's fight to protect her tender young potatoes from the army reveals the tragic consequences of a crop being harvested too soon. On Zola's allotment, a striking miner finds more brutal and perilous than anything he imagined at the coalface. Carver's anti-hero plants up a neglected hanging basket in a doomed attempt to repair his relationship with his wife. And Brett Easton Ellis's brand-obsessed hero, drawn into the garden by the promise of carnage, finds in horticulture the perfect outlet for his demons. Inspired, botanically accurate and utterly hilarious, Machiavelli's Lawn will appeal to green-fingered book lovers everywhere. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2000
ISBN 10: 1862073899 ISBN 13: 9781862073890
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This is the story of how and why a talented writer came to kill himself. When Diana Athill met the man she calls Didi, an Egyptian in exile, she fell in love instantly and out of love just as fast. Didi moved into her flat, they shared housework and holidays, and a life of easy intimacy seemed to beckon. But Didi's sweetness and intelligence soon revealed a darker side - he was a gambler, a drinker and a womaniser, impossible to live with but impossible to ignore. With painful honesty, Diana Athill explores the three years they spent together; a period that culminated in Didi's suicide - in her home - an event he described in the journals he left for her to read as "the one authentic act of my life". The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2008
ISBN 10: 0140123571 ISBN 13: 9780140123579
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Good. This edition of Granta has articles by Martha Gellhorn, Eleanor Roosevelt, Oliver Sacks, Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Raymond Chandler and Patrick Leigh Fermor. There are examples of letters to Chinese dissidents, letters to pop stars, hate letters, publishers' rejection letters to Elliot, Philip Larkin and Wittgenstein and Mandela's prison letters. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2000
ISBN 10: 1862074003 ISBN 13: 9781862074002
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Tracing apparently insignificant fault lines between Nick and Chloe, from first meeting, love and marriage to the point where the pressures of romantic expectation and sexual violence blow their lives apart. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2019
ISBN 10: 1783783664 ISBN 13: 9781783783663
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Ireland is flooded, derelict. It never stops raining. The Kid in Yellow has stolen the babba from the Earlie King. Why? Something to do with the King's daughter, and a talking statue, something godawful. And from every wall the King's Eye watches. And yet the city is full of hearts-defiant-sprayed in yellow, the mark of the Kid. It cannot end well. Can it? Follow the Kid, hear the tale. Roll up! Roll up! The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2003
ISBN 10: 1862075557 ISBN 13: 9781862075559
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The exact sciences have an immense weight and influence in our culture. At the heart of their effectiveness lies the mathematical equation. The difficult form of the great equations - particularly those of modern physics - has often acted as an obstacle to any understanding and they have come to embody the mystery and terror of modern science. This volume brings together well-known scientists, historians and writers about science as each seeks to unpack an equation and explain how it was arrived at, what it can do and what remains to be understood about it. The contributors include Roger Penrose, John Maynard Smith, Arthur Miller, Steven Weinberg and Oliver Morton. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2011
ISBN 10: 1847084265 ISBN 13: 9781847084262
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A remarkable, truthful and vivid recollection of childhood, from the author of Stet, After a Funeral, Don't Look at Me Like That and Instead of a Letter. Here Athill goes back to the beginning in a sharp evocation of a childhood unfashionably filled with happiness - a Norfolk country house, servants, the pleasures of horses, the unfolding secrets of adults and sex. This is England in the 1920s seen (with a clear and unsentimental eye) from the vantage point of England in 2001. It was a privileged and loving life: but did it equip the author to be happy? The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 1998
ISBN 10: 1862070423 ISBN 13: 9781862070424
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A celebration of love in all its frailty, confusion and excess. Set on board the QE2, and in New York and Liverpool, Gut Symmetries explores parallel lives, loves and universes. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2016
ISBN 10: 1783780096 ISBN 13: 9781783780099
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Gillian seems to have it all - she is beautiful, successful, and securely married. But one night, after an argument with her husband, their car crashes on a wet road, and everything is lost. When she wakes in the hospital, she is a widow with a ruined face and no way back to the person she thought she was. It is only when she begins to piece together the painful shards of her present existence and revisit a relationship from her past that she is able to glimpse the freedom that might come with her loss. From the master of unadorned storytelling, All Days Are Night is a quietly disquieting exploration of identity, inside and out. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2008
ISBN 10: 0140152105 ISBN 13: 9780140152104
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 1998
ISBN 10: 1862070938 ISBN 13: 9781862070936
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This is Blake Morrison's memoir of his father, Dr Arthur Morrison. It shows a son asking who his father really was. Was he the man seen through a seven-year-old's eyes, jumping queues, or the sexual charmer seen by a 17-year-old? Or was he the figure, so hard to recognize, on his death-bed? The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2005
ISBN 10: 1862077924 ISBN 13: 9781862077928
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Was Little Jack Horner a squatter? Baa Baa Black Sheep a bleat about taxation? Is Jack and Jill about loss of virginity? And Goosie Goosie Gander about prostitution? This ingenious book delves into the hidden meanings of the most innocuous-sounding nursery rhymes, exposing a seething and subversive mass of sexual innuendo, religious hatred, financial hardship and political rebellion. It contains a multitude of the kind of surprising nuggets you want to pass on to your friends. It makes us look afresh at the words we parroted innocently as children, and provides an accessible lesson in British history along the way. Each rhyme (and an additional chapter on sex and relationships in nursery rhymes) is illustrated by a contemporary artist, varying in style from the traditional to the modern and bringing a whole new dimension to the reasons behind the rhyme. This new edition includes 16 new rhymes. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2015
ISBN 10: 184708821X ISBN 13: 9781847088215
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. When Will Boast's father dies he is alone in the world: an American with distant English roots, orphaned, and derailed by grief. Everything he thought he knew about his parents unravels when he discovers he has two half-brothers living in England. In exquisite prose Will Boast sets about piecing together a new sense of himself, attempting as he does to understand, forgive and heal the mistakes of his father's past. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Published by Granta Books, United Kingdom, London, 2017
ISBN 10: 184627527X ISBN 13: 9781846275272
Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. 'A day without laughter is a day wasted.' It is Christmas Day when Charlie Chaplin receives a visit from Death. The great actor is 82 years old, but not yet ready to face the final curtain. Desperate to see his teenage son grow up, the actor strikes a deal: if he manages to make Death laugh, he will win an extra year of life. As he awaits his final, fatal encounter, Chaplin composes an impassioned letter to his son, in which he attempts to tell him about his past, from his impoverished childhood in England (with an alcoholic father and a mother who went mad) to the heights of success on the silver screen in America, via stints in the circus and vaudeville, and odd jobs as a newspaper hawker, printer, boxer and embalmer. As well as being the story of the evolution of a comic genius, this is the story of the evolution of cinema and how a beam of light on a white screen fired the imagination of an entire nation. As in his silent films, Charlie's adventures are simultaneously tragic and comic. The narrative flickers at a frenetic clip from false starts and early failures to eventual triumph in the magical moment when - before the eyes of a stupefied film crew - Charlie became the Tramp: with a little moustache, a shuffling slantwise walk, a cane and a dusty bowler hat, one of the most iconic figures of the golden age of cinema was born. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.