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What a Carve Up! [Paperback]

Jonathan Coe (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Publication Date: 19 May 2008

What a Carve Up! - a hilarious 1980s political satire by Jonathan Coe

It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year:

Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it isn't; 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; Thomas is making a killing on the stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators.

But once their hapless biographer Michael Owen starts investigating the family's trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings, the time growing ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance. . .

This wickedly funny take on life under the Thatcher government was the winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize

'A sustained feat of humour, suspense and polemic, full of twists and ironies' Hilary Mantel, Sunday Times

'A riveting social satire on the chattering and all-powerful upper classes' Time Out

'Big, hilarious, intricate, furious, moving' Guardian

Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with biting social commentary, moving and astute observations of life and hilarious set pieces that have made him one of the most popular writers of his generation. His other titles, The Accidental Woman, A Touch of Love, The Rotters' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The Closed Circle, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, The House of Sleep (winner of the1998 Prix Médicis Étranger), and The Rain Before it Falls, are all available in Penguin paperback.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 512 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (19 May 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0141033290
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141033297
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 3 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 32,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Jonathan Coe Page
Jonathan Coe
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Product Description

Review

Big, hilarious, intricate, furious, moving (Guardian)

Probably the best English novelist of his generation (Nick Hornby)

Everything a novel ought to be: courageous, challenging, funny, sad - and peopled with a fine troupe of characters (The Times)

A sustained feat of humour, suspense and polemic, full of twists and ironies (Hilary Mantel Sunday Times) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Jonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961. His most recent novel is The Rain Before It Falls. He is also the author of The Accidental Woman, A Touch of Love, The Dwarves of Death, What a Carve Up!, which won the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, The House of Sleep, which won the 1998 Prix Medicis Etranger, The Rotter's Club, winner of the Everyman Wodehouse Prize and The Closed Circle. He has also published a biography of the novelist B.S. Johnson, which won the Orwell prize in 2005. He lives in London with his wife and two children.
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars It ROCKS 19 July 2000
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
You simply HAVE to read it. It re-affirms that the novel is not dead as an art form (the structure is simply astounding), it proves that you can write a novel that is both politically astute and personally relevant - and it is further proof that an intelligent, sophisticated book can be funny enough to make you cry with laughter. It is an absolute masterpiece that I have bought for more than ten people, each one of whom has agreed that it is one of the best novels of the last ten years. Buy it and see why - you will not be disappointed
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56 of 58 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars I was moved, amused and enraged 28 July 2004
By Backdrifter
Format:Paperback
A real broad canvas of a novel that examines life under the Thatcher government in 1980s Britain, but it's not just a piece of political tub-thumping. The story plants its roots in the 1940s and uses the shenanigans of a particular influential family to illustrate the gradual dismantling and restructuring of British society and, above all, how the whims of this one group of people have far-reaching and devastating consequences for the average person on the street.

But I don't want to make it sound like a grim sociopolitical tract. At times, it's incredibly funny, and occasionally very touching. It's bookended by World War II and the Gulf War, but its examination of society probes like a laser beam into the minutiae of everyday things that affect us all, like public transport, healthcare, what we eat, how we think. Ultimately, it's a very human novel, superbly constructed and deserving of high praise.

And while I kind of see what previous reviewers mean about it not appealing to Tories or illustrating a class war, I should try to look beyond those issues because this isn't just a book about politics, it's about people - it's about us, and what we have allowed to happen to our society.

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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A great British writer 16 Mar 2001
By Sunfish
Format:Paperback
Jonathon Coe lives and works outside the London media scene - as such he is free to write his own stories, to his own agenda, without having to concern himself with the petty struggles that often upset the London publishing circles. With 'What a Carve Up!' he has managed to avoid the contemporary pitfalls that so engage Martin Amis and Julian Barnes and has instead created one of the most fascinatingly constructed books I have ever read. Coe has not agonised in print over his love of great writers, or publicised his literary angst over the direction literature should be taking. Instead he has got on with the craftsmanship of writing a truly great novel.

With a Dickensian approach to morality and integrity Coe sends up the perverse class system and corrupt establishment that he sees controlling Britain. He is never po-faced, and instead manages to suit the weapon to the danger, and unlike other passionate writers he never over-reacts, which means that the reader will appreciate his points without ever questioning their motives. With elements of Magical Realism as well as clear British canonical influences Coe has quite possibly written the best novel of the last ten years.

I look forward to his next.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant read
I can't wait to read more of this author's books .this one is funny ,sad, and and keeps you in suspense right to the end and what an ending! Fact or fiction ?
Published 10 days ago by kevin stannard
4.0 out of 5 stars Things That Go Bump In The Night
This is a rambling country-house of a novel with lots of hidden corridors, secret passages, layers of history and things that go bump in the night. Read more
Published 13 days ago by Roger Risborough
5.0 out of 5 stars What a Carve UP!
This is a clever book that makes a profound statement on the Thatcherite era that has (arguably) left us with many of the problems we face today. Read more
Published 13 days ago by N. L. Ellam
3.0 out of 5 stars What a carry-on
This was the strangest Jonathon Coe novel i have read. The theme of life imitating a carry on film was unique. Read more
Published 3 months ago by John man!
5.0 out of 5 stars Briliant!
So happy with the purchase. May as well have been brand new, speedy delivery, resonable price. And as a fellow animal lover, finding out my money was helping a worth while charity... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Abby Pallett-Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and compulsively readable
Probably one of the most brilliant novels of this century. A failing novelist takes a commission to write a vanity published biography of one family, the Wishaws. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Tigersuzy
3.0 out of 5 stars What a mash up!
The main character in this book starts out trying to write a family history but it ends up as a novel. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Nicholas V. Dowling
5.0 out of 5 stars It was like magic.
The layers that are so skillfully woven by the writer had me in a state of disbelief, for it consistently surprised me and at the end I was left with a feeling of utter rage. Read more
Published 12 months ago by B. Salavati
1.0 out of 5 stars Kindle strikes again
Why should I pay more for the kindle version of this book than I would for the paperback?

I'm getting increasingly tired of this, Amazon. SORT IT OUT!
Published 16 months ago by Gideon Pepys
4.0 out of 5 stars A great book about the 80's
What a Carve Up is foremost a well written and structured novel. It is fun and easy to read. For me, what really made the book stand out was the underlying political message. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Habeeb
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