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Review
'David Mitchell is dizzyingly, dazzlingly good...BLACK SWAN GREEN is just gorgeous.'
( Daily Mail )'A delight to read from beginning to end'
( Sunday Express )'Luminously beautiful'
( The Times )'I do hope to read a better British novel this year, but I can't honestly say that I expect to.'
( Scotsman )'Mitchell is just about the best writer operating in Britain today...a novel that, like each of its predecessors, sticks in the back of your head for weeks after you've finished it.'
( Arena )'Spry, disconcerting and moving. It is also extremely funny even - or especially - at the blackest of moments.'
(Kate Kellaway, Observer Summer Reads )'Intricate and beautiful'
( Time Out )'Hugely touching and enjoyable'
(Rachel Cooke, Observer Summer Reads )'It is the best kind of contemporary fiction'
( Times Literary Supplement )'Rich and strange'
( Guardian )'That very rare thing, a realistic first novel written by a master of his craft.'
( Independent )'All the drama and inadvertent comedy of the onset of adolescence are brilliantly laid bare...a deceptively easy read, at times uproariously funny'
( Evening Standard )Daily Mail
'David Mitchell is dizzyingly, dazzlingly good...Black Swan Green is just gorgeous'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mitchell is a fantastic writer, continuing to display chameleon skills with every book. he can write, truthfully, with several different voices, and in several different styles.
In this book, on one level he damps down his pyrotechnics,by staying with one narrator throughout, rather than 'linking' different stories.
What he ends up with is a book of more traditional structure, following the journey of a adolescent boy, growing up in the early 80's in Worcestershire, with his own painful and often funny adolescence set against a backdrop of the Falklands War.
Whilst Mitchell can easily match Sue Townsend (Adrian Mole) with comedic touches, he also connects with something much more visceral and poignant.
His engaging narrator learns a lot in the space of a year about some very adult issues. This is a much easier book to read than Mitchell's others, and his craft is displayed much less flamboyantly, but is no less satisfying
In this book, on one level he damps down his pyrotechnics,by staying with one narrator throughout, rather than 'linking' different stories.
What he ends up with is a book of more traditional structure, following the journey of a adolescent boy, growing up in the early 80's in Worcestershire, with his own painful and often funny adolescence set against a backdrop of the Falklands War.
Whilst Mitchell can easily match Sue Townsend (Adrian Mole) with comedic touches, he also connects with something much more visceral and poignant.
His engaging narrator learns a lot in the space of a year about some very adult issues. This is a much easier book to read than Mitchell's others, and his craft is displayed much less flamboyantly, but is no less satisfying
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
David Mitchell deserves awards for his writing because he must be the finest author around. Black Swan Green takes you through a year in the life of thirteen-year-old boy in a typical English village in 1982. His references to events of the time, in particular the Falklands War take you back as you read. It does help that Jason Taylor is a very likeable, intelligent and yet vulnerable boy, being afflicted with a stammer, and the book is very painful to read at times as he suffers that most bleak and hurtful thing, bullying. I'd recently read Cloud Atlas which was a brilliant but quite difficult read and I knew this book was a lot easier but I was surprised that he even linked this book to Cloud Atlas through the amazing and surreal Madame Crommelynck daughter of Vyvyan Ayrs and who was the unrequited love of the tragic Robert Frobisher. Overall this book is an absolute 'must' read, as good as 'Catcher in the Rye'.
62 of 68 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Anyone who is a fan of David Mitchell (and even those who have not read him) will love this book. However, don't expect the style of his previous books: Number 9 Dream, Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten. This is the story of a year in the rather eventful life of Jason Taylor, a boy of 13 growing up in a village called Black Swan Green, Worcestershire, in the early 1980s. Jason, apart from being quite a normal 13 year old, is a stammerer who tries desperately hard to hide his 'secret' from the rest of his schoolmates. His story of his experiences at school is one that anyone who was a teenager can identify with: how he sees his parents, the teachers, bullies, and those strange creatures called girls. But what makes this teenage narrative come alive, what makes you feel like you are there with Jason Taylor is the often brutal honesty with which he tells his truth. He says all the things you thought about as a teenager growing up but didn't dare to articulate. Mitchell also manages to evoke a nostalgia for the 1980s, and his detailing is superb. You remember how you or your parents or friends felt during the recession, or the public mood during the Falklands War. And there is also a nice touch where Mitchell quite unexpectedly introduces a character from one of his stories in Cloud Atlas.
The English countryside and village life is portrayed without the slightest hint of romanticism. A teenage boy doesn't see life like that. This is life in the raw. Jason sees the often brutal contests between boys to establish a pecking order, he is afraid of being ridiculed or beaten up after school, he worries about his status among the rest of the kids and he wonders if he will ever have a girlfriend. Life for young Jason Taylor is very serious indeed. In Black Swan Green, Mitchell makes a rather unpromising subject tense and fascinating. And it's a real pageturner -- you just have to know what happens next. Just buy this book!
The English countryside and village life is portrayed without the slightest hint of romanticism. A teenage boy doesn't see life like that. This is life in the raw. Jason sees the often brutal contests between boys to establish a pecking order, he is afraid of being ridiculed or beaten up after school, he worries about his status among the rest of the kids and he wonders if he will ever have a girlfriend. Life for young Jason Taylor is very serious indeed. In Black Swan Green, Mitchell makes a rather unpromising subject tense and fascinating. And it's a real pageturner -- you just have to know what happens next. Just buy this book!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Below par Mitchell
I am a huge fan of this author, but I needed two attempts to get into this meandering narrative,and still couldn't finish it. Read more
Published 7 days ago by M. Daly
Best book ever
This is my favourite book of all time. If you were born in the late 60s or early 70s it will take you back to those times and make them real again. Read more
Published 20 days ago by G. Lloyd-jones
move over Lord of the Flies
I came to this book after Cloud Atlas.
Completely different, but very satisfying.
The author manages to create the voice of an anguished year 9 boy perfectly. Read more
Completely different, but very satisfying.
The author manages to create the voice of an anguished year 9 boy perfectly. Read more
Published 2 months ago by G W
Nostalgic
Set in the 80's a first person story of a thirteen year old boy is always going to draw some comparisons. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Syriat
Took me back to those long lost years of my youth....
leaving me feeling sad and sick with longing for the past. Loved the book, a little surreal at times but could identify with the main character. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Gilly
Wonderful book
I've read nearly all of Mitchell's books and so far this one stands out as being his best. It's quite a surprise after reading the others that take in such wide areas and a high... Read more
Published 5 months ago by B. Cornell
A ride back in time
This is a little out of my usual genre for reading material. It was like digging up a time capsule from the 1980s with so many historical references to the times and it took me... Read more
Published 6 months ago by I bite
Delightful
This is a lovely, gentle story about the trials and tribulations of a 13 year old boy growing up in the 1980s. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Bruce Jones
Jace is ace
I love Mitchell's books generally but this particularly good allowing for reminiscence of the late 20th Century times and of those awkward teen years. Read more
Published 7 months ago by mad about flowers
Mole-ish
a good read, though I could never quite get the voice of Adrian Mole out of my head. Is it possible to write about growing up in the early eighties without sounding like Adrian... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Frootle
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