{"title":"Books by Jonathan Coe","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780241967768","title":"The Rotters' Club","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe first in The Rotters' Club series, bestselling author Jonathan Coe's iconic tale of Benjamin Trotter is a hilarious, heartfelt celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e WINNER OF THE EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBirmingham, England, c. 1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, first love, corrosive class warfare, detention, IRA bombings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Unforgettably funny and painfully honest, \u003ci\u003eThe Rotters' Club\u003c\/i\u003e is perfect for readers of Nick Hornby and William Boyd - or anyone who ever experience adolescence the hard way!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e THE STORY CONTINUES IN \u003ci\u003eTHE CLOSED CIRCLE\u003c\/i\u003e AND \u003ci\u003eMIDDLE ENGLAND.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'One of those sweeping, ambitious yet hugely readable, moving and richly comic novels . . . a masterpiece' \u003ci\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'Very funny . . . Coe had achieved that rare feat: a novel stuffed with characters you really care for' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'A book to cherish, a book to reread, a book to buy for all your friends' \u003ci\u003eIndependent on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, \u003ci\u003eBournville\u003c\/i\u003e, is available now!\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201638924466,"sku":"9780241967768","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241967768_5bac935b-8638-4374-93e8-d8c602a7d46e.jpg?v=1786012612"},{"product_id":"9780241986479","title":"The Rotters' Club","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Sometimes I feel that I am destined always to be offstage whenever the main action occurs. That God has made me the victim of some cosmic practical joke, by assigning me little more than a walk-on part in my own life . . .'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eComing of age in 1970s' Birmingham, teenager Benjamin Trotter is about to discover the agonies and ecstasies of growing up. 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Henry's turning hospitals into car parks. Roddy's selling art in return for sex. Down on the farm Dorothy's squeezing every last pound from her livestock. 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For eleven-year-old Mary and her family in 1945, it's the centre of the world. The reason their streets smell faintly of chocolate, the place where most of their friends and neighbours have worked for decades. Mary will go on to live through the Coronation and the World Cup final, royal weddings and royal funerals, Brexit and Covid-19. She'll have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 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Her life is a chain of accidents. Untouched by friendship, unimpressed by devoted Ronny and his endless marriage proposals, she lives in a world of her own, but not of her own making. Even as she stumbled on through university, work, marriage and motherhood, Maria finds it hard to see what all the fuss is about.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWill our heroine ever be able to control the direction of her life, or will it end, as it began, by accident? What does chance next have in store for her?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the author of the award-winning\u003ci\u003e The Rotters' Club \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e What a Carve Up!, The Accidental Woman\u003c\/i\u003e will be enjoyed by readers of Nick Hornby and William Boyd and centres on a quirky and highly individual woman who is still struggling to find her place in life. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The Accidental Woman has a cocky individual voice of its own. . . here's precocious, rebellious talent' \u003ci\u003eMail on Sunday\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e'Slyly parodies the clichés of most first novels' \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e'A convincing stuffy of the random impetuses by which human lives tend to be governed. 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