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Ransom (Paperback)

by Jay McInerney (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Ransom + How it Ended + The Good Life
Price For All Three: £17.97

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  • This item: Ransom by Jay McInerney

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  • How it Ended by Jay McInerney

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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New edition edition (15 Jan 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0747585199
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747585190
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 182,747 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #13 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > M > McInerney, Jay

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Product Description

Review
'McInerney is one of the most gifted writers of his generation whatever he does makes fascinating reading' Observer 'Ransom is cleverly written, intelligent, lively, concise and humorous. And it gives the reader that final buzz - it's serious' Guardian 'Witty, acerbic and buoyed by observational gifts, McInerney's writing is never less than deft' Financial Times 'McInerney has a sure hand with narrative, a sharp but forgiving eye for human frailty and a considerable gift for deadpan comedy that kids the things he loves a superb and humane social critic' Newsweek

Guardian
`Cleverly written, intelligent, lively, concise and humorous. And
it gives the reader that final buzz - it's serious'

See all Product Description

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51% buy the item featured on this page:
Ransom 4.0 out of 5 stars (8)
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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Getting away from it all?, 14 Mar 2002
This review is from: Ransom (Bloomsbury Paperbacks) (Paperback)
Have you ever thought that if you just got rid of everything, packed your backpack and went away somewhere far from here, you might be able to make sense of your life? Find some deeper meaning in a foreign culture?

You can run but you can NEVER hide!

In my opinion, a book which should ring true to the so-called X- and Y-generation. It deals with troubled family relations, growing up and trying to find a sense of purpose in this 'material world'.

I read this book after having previously read Model Behaviour and Story Of My Life; which both were cynical and witty in that Douglas Coupland-way - but even fluffier and more easily read.

Although I enjoyed the two previous books, I think Ransom is a much more weighty and serious book. You will find some backbreaking humour in this one too, but the main story line is not in any way reliant upon these puns.

So, I guess what I am trying to tell you is:
read this book!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, Better than Bright Lights,Big City., 25 Nov 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Ransom (Flamingo) (Paperback)
An excellent book if you like the idea of honour, tradition and a code of conduct that really means something. But why did it have to happen. Their are too many De-Vito's in the world and not enough Ransom-San's.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars The book I wanted to like but couldn't., 24 Aug 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Ransom (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)
Although I am a fan of the author's sense of humor and writing style, I'm often kind of embarassed about sitting down to read another book about a brooding, sarcastic, over-privilidged, young, white male. Ransom is in line with all of the above, which as I previously admitted, I tend to enjoy (albeit abashedly). But each time I turned a page of Ransom, I felt like I was staring at a bad accident. Americans in Japan walking around wearing top knots, kimono and carrying swords? Come on! The author worked in every silly notion about Japan that Americans love to generalize and exaggerate. Bath houses, martial arts, poisonous blowfish, yakuza tattoos...McInerny threw them all into this one, allowing us not a glimpse of Japan but a cross between a bad James Clavell novel and a comic book. Of couse there were a few of those classic quips that you have to read twice so that you can quote them at "the right" moments. Beyond that, this book represents an adolescent, often insensitive few of Japan that, if it wasn't so laughable, would be completely disappointing.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars It's well worth tracking down.
This is the second novel by Jay McInerney, which is not yet published in the UK.

Having read all McInerney's other novels it comes as a surprise that this one is not set... Read more

Published on 27 May 2000 by terry-truman@excite.com

3.0 out of 5 stars A novel desperately in want of a plot
Mawkish yet self-deprecating, boring yet interesting, ineffectual yet captivating. This novel fits all categories. Read more
Published on 18 May 1999

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard-faced, hard-edged, hard luck
Strange, but as a story goes McInerney's insight into one young white American's alienation in Japan should have been a blinder, a corker... Read more
Published on 30 Aug 1998

5.0 out of 5 stars A disallusioned American discovers solace in karate.
A twenty-something American searches for personal and philosophical meaning when he travels to the orient. Read more
Published on 15 May 1998

4.0 out of 5 stars In modern Japan, Ransom learns about karate, life, and death
Jay McInerney does for karate what Robert Pirsig did for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The book centers around the experiences of an American expatriate recovering... Read more
Published on 4 Feb 1997

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