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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9781847080547
ISBN: 1847080545
Label: Granta Books
Manufacturer: Granta Books
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: April 02, 2008
Publisher: Granta Books
Studio: Granta Books

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• The Year of the Jouncer (Smoking Diaries Volume 2)
• The Last Cigarette
• Coda
• Fat Chance
• Enter a Fox: Further Adventures of a Paranoid
• see more

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Rating: - An honest man writing emotional truths - with a few writer's devices
This book first came to my attention a few years ago when it popped up more than once in a newspaper's `My Books of the Year' feature. I always find myself drawn to the rare volume that is mentioned more than once across these two or three pages in which the literati deliver their annual exhortations. The coincidence of two or three fulsome recommendations led me to make a mental note at the time; a mental note consigned to that vast dark cavern of my life's lost learning. However, a very recent ... Read More

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Rating: - A slow burner
I picked this book up with anticipation, having read an extract of it that I thoroughly enjoyed. I expect more of the same laughs and bitter resentments, but was somewhat confounded by the full diaries. The books is more centred around Gray's plumbing of the depths of his past, heaping mockery upon himself, expressing disgust at the man he has become, and thinking about what his fifteen year-old self would have thought of his sixty five year-old self. The last forty pages are a particularly ponderous ... Read More

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Rating: - A book that slowly wins you over
The blurb on the cover of this book says something along the lines of "the funniest book I've ever read". I certainly wouldn't go that far, but after a slow start, this book gets the better of you. Dry wit in generous helpings, accompanied with some more personal, intimate truths. By the time you finish it, you'll be surprised to find you were enjoying it it more than you thought you were.

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Rating: - Gray is still at the top of his form !
If you have read Simon Gray's other volumes of diaries you will find this is a fitting addition to your collection. Gray's self-lacerating wit is still very much in evidence and despite his documented physical decay he avoids self-pity as he invites the reader into his world of cigarettes, writing and dining.

I first read Gray's volume 'An Unatural Pursuit' and was immediately hooked by his penetrating observations of his fading professional fortunes. Whether or not you like the world of theatre ... Read More

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Rating: - Hysterically Funny
I found myself laughing out loud on public transport but was oblivious to the stares.

The funniest thing I've read in ages - Simon Gray is a comic genius.

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