{"title":"Books by John Kennedy Toole","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780141182865","title":"A Confederacy of Dunces","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'My favourite book of all time... it stays with you long after you have read it - for your  whole life, in fact' Billy Connolly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA monument to sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern - this is Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, noble crusader against a world of dunces. The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged. Ignatius ignores them, heaving his vast bulk through the city's fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in store for him: Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission - and now he has a pirate costume and a hot-dog cart to do it with...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever published during his lifetime, John Kennedy Toole's hilarious satire, \u003ci\u003eA Confederacy of Dunces \u003c\/i\u003eis a \u003ci\u003eDon Quixote \u003c\/i\u003efor the modern age, and this Penguin Modern Classics edition includes a foreword by Walker Percy. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'A pungent work of slapstick, satire and intellectual incongruities ... it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue'\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201419215026,"sku":"9780141182865","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141182865.jpg?v=1786011255"},{"product_id":"9780241951590","title":"A Confederacy of Dunces","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eONE OF THE BBC'S 100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'This is probably my favourite book of all time' \u003c\/b\u003eBilly Connolly \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA pithy, laugh-out-loud story following \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Kennedy Toole's \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003elarger-than-life Ignatius J. Reilly, floundering his way through 1960s New Orleans,\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e beautifully resigned with cover art by Gary Taxali\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e'This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, anti-Christs, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs, and lesbians . . . don't make the mistake of bothering me.'\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIgnatius J. Reilly: fat, flatulent, eloquent and almost unemployable. By the standards of ordinary folk he is pretty much unhinged, too. But is he bothered by this?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e No. For this misanthropic crusader against an America fallen into vice and ignorance has a mission: to rescue a naked female philosopher in distress. And he has a pirate costume and hot-dog cart to do it with . . .\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'I succumbed, stunned and seduced, page after page, vocal with delight. A masterwork of comedy' \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'A fine funny novel. This is the kind of book one wants to keep quoting from' Anthony Burgess\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43201632862386,"sku":"9780241951590","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":57682634572149,"sku":"9780241284667","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241951590_35414d91-7d8f-4ecc-a819-1ab6f9c6ac74.jpg?v=1792511549"},{"product_id":"9781611854985","title":"The Neon Bible","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe accomplished and evocative first novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eA Confederacy of Dunces\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn Kennedy Toole wrote\u003ci\u003e The Neon Bible \u003c\/i\u003efor a literary contest at the age of sixteen. The manuscript was finally published twenty years after Toole's death.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Neon Bible\u003c\/i\u003e opens with the narrator, a young man named David, on a train, leaving the small Southern town he's grown up in for the first time. What unspools is the tender and tragic coming-of-age story of a lonely child, a story that revolves around David's unorthodox friendship with his great-aunt Mae - a former stage performer who is fiercely at odds with the conservative townspeople - and the everyday toll of living in an environment of religious fanaticism. From the opening lines of \u003ci\u003eThe Neon Bible\u003c\/i\u003e, David is fully alive, naive yet sharply observant, drawing us into his world through the sure artistry of John Kennedy Toole.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43204738482354,"sku":"9781611854985","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781611854985_efb2f0fa-04c9-48de-a20d-8951be796300.jpg?v=1786023652"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-john-kennedy-toole.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}