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The Big Blind [Paperback]

Louise Wener
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
RRP: £6.99
Price: £5.24 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Book Description

13 Sep 2004
Audrey Unger hasn't seen her father since she was a child. A professional poker player and compulsive gambler, he left home when she was eleven years old and disappeared from her life for good.



Now in her early thirties and poised on the edge of her own mid-life crisis, she makes the decision to try and find him. To discover what it was that made him gamble. To discover what drove him to give her up.



Big Louie is the key to her father's world. An agoraphobic, card playing, Hans Christian Anderson sized giant, who hasn't left his flat in over three years.



Fighting a battle with his own phobias, he takes Audrey on a journey of self discovery. He guides her through the subtleties of professional poker; the thrill of high stakes gambling; and on towards a final hand of cards that will change both of their lives for good.

Frequently Bought Together

The Big Blind + The Half Life of Stars + Worldwide Adventures in Love
Price For All Three: £15.72

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Product details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks; New Ed edition (13 Sep 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0340820322
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340820322
  • Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 2.1 x 19.7 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 346,046 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

'Combines laugh-out loud funny passages alongside sections that make you want to cry' (Independent )

'Great comic characters, and smart one-liners' (Observer )

'An uplifting, original tale' (Sunday Mirror )

'A moving, often funny story of high stakes, lost love and finding your place in the world' (Company )

From the Inside Flap

Audrey Ungar is about to take the gamble of her life.

Playing the cards she has been dealt has left Audrey feeling out of control. Her professional poker-playing father walked out of her life when she was eleven and now, in her early thirties, she’s prepared to risk everything to find him.

Big Louie is the key to her father’s compulsive world; an agoraphobic, ill-tempered card-genius, who hasn’t left his flat in over two years. Forced to chose between the security she craves and taking her rightful seat at the top table of high stakes gambling, Audrey is propelled towards a final hand of poker that will change her life forever.

‘Wener has a lovely way with words’ Daily Telegraph on Goodnight Steve McQueen, also available from Flame


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Customer Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A funny sad happy book 19 May 2003
Format:Paperback
That's what this is: a funny, sad, happy book. Probably it would have been easy for her to do another book set in the area she knows, music, but instead she has branched out into something different, into poker, the sort found in family backrooms and dingy flats and the internet. Her heroine is unusual, a woman who sorts her peas into prime number groups, and has a background note of loss in her life from her father, missing, presumed playing poker. Wener is constantly readable; sometimes the chapters are short, bite-sized gulps, sometimes big pieces you bite off, but always page-turning. And she's especially good at describing the texture of real life, the gritty detail that makes up any day.. or night.
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5.0 out of 5 stars A really great read - not chick lit 18 April 2013
By Andrew
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I read this originally years ago (I bought this copy for my wife) as I was a fan of Sleeper and was interested to know what Louise Wener did next. It's a really good story with loads of incident and characters however what really comes across is the research that has gone in. I wouldn't class this as Chick Lit even though it has a first person female protagonist, it's more about a child trying to find a long lost parent and work out who they really are (with loads of great descriptions of intense poker matches).
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5.0 out of 5 stars Poker, Pickles and Prime numbers! 2 Oct 2007
By Sarah Durston TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Audrey Ungar is the unlikely but incredible heroine of 'The Big Blind'. She eats pickles from the jar and sorts her peas into prime numbers. Audrey dreams of seeing her father again; a man who jeopardised everything, including his family, to become a professional gambler.

Around the same time Audrey meets Big Louie, an American agoraphobic with OCD, who hasn't left his flat for two years. The two of them hit it off and Louie begins to teach Audrey how to play poker.

This is a great novel, at times funny and others heartbreaking. It's a tale of unlikely friendships, poker, interests and obsessions and the extent to which family defines who we are.

I loved it.
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