or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
Trade in Yours
For a £0.25 Gift Card
Trade in
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Colour:
Image not available

 
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

A Year in the Life of the Man Who Fell Asleep [Paperback]

Greg Stekelman
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
Price: £7.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Temporarily out of stock.
Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon. Gift-wrap available.
Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in A Year in the Life of the Man Who Fell Asleep for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Card, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Product details

  • Paperback: 294 pages
  • Publisher: The Friday Project Limited (21 April 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0954831845
  • ISBN-13: 978-0954831844
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 176,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

Product Description

Synopsis

'The doorbell rang. I looked at my alarm clock. It was 3.00am. I closed my eyes and pretended I hadn't heard it. It rang again. I put on a pair of jeans and answered the door. It was Jesus. 'He looked terrible. His hair was unkempt and there were grey bags under his eyes. He stank of whisky. You had best come in, I said.' So begins a year in the life of The Man Who Fell Asleep - artist, thinker, writer, North Londoner, and alter-ego of Greg Stekelman, the bastard lovechild that James Thurber, Mark Twain and Eddie Izzard never had. Part novel, part journal, part snippets of conversation overheard on the Tube, part collection of drawings of Kevin Spacey and Condaleeza Rice, this unique diary is guaranteed to have you weeping with bemused laughter before you reach the end of the first chapter.

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 31 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing, original book. 23 Jun 2006
Format:Paperback
This is an amazing book. It takes the form of a diary and tells the story of a year in the life of The Man Who Fell Asleep, an aimless, philosophically-challenged man in London. He encounters celebrities, polar bears and (memorably) Jesus. It's a very funny book but it raises a lot of serious issues about identity, morality and philosophy. In many ways, it's a very London book, but I don't think you need to know London to enjoy the book. It's about a man and his disconnection from his surroundings; a man who takes refuge in fantasy because real life is filled with contradictory, confusing notions. It's a beautifully written book, striking a perfect note between irreverent fantasy and cynical reality. Recommended to anyone with a brain, a sense of humour and imagination.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Mehhhh......not funny.... 17 Jun 2008
Format:Paperback
Must say from the reviewers I saw on here I was expecting the book to be very funny but I must say I didn't find it entertaining at all. Full marks for imagination and the book has brief moments of wit but I just didn't get anything out of it!
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
8 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Original and Hilarious 23 Nov 2007
Format:Paperback
I found this book to be a hugely refreshing and welcome change from what is usually on offer in book shops. There isn't a plot as such but that is what makes the diary format ideal. The reader is thrown straight into Stekelman's unique style on the very first page when themanwhofellasleep has an encounter with a Jesus very different from what one would expect. The book is never boring slipping effortlessly from the cheeky to the downright outrageous. I defy you to read this on the train and not laugh to yourself; when I was reading the 'Jokes' passage I giggled so much I think a bit of wee came out.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant 8 Mar 2008
Format:Paperback
This is the best book that I've read in a very long time (maybe 2 years). It's written as a diary and the entries are pretty much totally unconnected and so some entries are significantly funnier than others. The worst of the entries only raise a chuckle-- but that was only the worst. Most of the entries made me laugh out loud, and October the 24th's entry was worth the price of the book alone. The pictures in the book were very funny too.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
13 of 20 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic, funny book - totally unique 17 April 2006
Format:Paperback
I was lucky enough to get hold of a copy of this book a few days before it was released and I've been sitting around the house laughing to myself and looking like an idiot. It's certainly a unique read. The novel takes the form of a surreal journal spanning a year in the life of the central character TheManWhoFellAsleep (we never do find out his real name). You're never quite sure what is real and what is fantasy but it doesn't really matter, because the book is just a hilarious, surreal, strange read. Just when you're laughing yourself silly, Stekelman comes up with a really depressing observation, and just when the book gets morbid or sad, he comes up with something so surreal and off-the-wall that you can't help but laugh. It's a strange book, but in a fresh, original way. The prose itself is quite sparse and minimal, but I think that suits the mood of the central character. Stekelman explores lots of different ideas - celebrity, religion, identity and family, and lots of the best scenes in the book involve his hilarious lunchtime meetings with Jesus or Justin Timberlake or the local Mafia. Very stupid and very clever. Oh, and I love the tube gossip!
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Falling asleep would have been the easy option! 18 Jun 2009
Format:Paperback
Falling asleep would have been the easy option! Staying awake to read this through to the bitter end was the challenge!
Sorry to disagree with the vast majority of the readers of this book, especially as I love to be positive about everything in life, but I can't recall the last time I read a book that I disliked so much. Yes I know I had the choice to stop reading, but morbid curiousity kept me at it, to see if I could find something, anything, to like about it.
When I was 14, my best friend at school had a lucrative business going on, where the boys paid her to write their 'creative writing' homework essays for them. She would make these up on the bus, deliberately spouting complete nonsense about 'the ducks of want, the worms of regret and the geese of desire'!These joke essays almost invariably gained the boys 'A' grades and she became a literary legend!
This book is like reading a giant, relentless version of her works! Maybe I, too, am missing the point, as conjectured by the only other reviewer who did not like this book; but for me it could easily be based on the Childrens' Classic Fairy Tale of 'The Emporer's New Clothes'. If you are unfamiliar with the wisdom of the lesson that lies behind this childrens' tale I would suggest reading that instead of this.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
18 of 30 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing beats a good night's sleep 19 May 2006
Format:Paperback
I love sleeping and who doesn't and that's why I bought this book. I must say that this is the best book I have ever read, the last book I read was Delia Smith's how to cook an egg which I thought would be a rollercoaster ride of a story but it was all recipes for eggs which the Man Who Fell Asleep isn't. Don't get me wrong I have absolutely nothing against eggs, some of my best friends are eggs, it's just that I don't really like them that much. Fried egg sandwiches are quite nice sometimes but I see scambled eggs as a complete waste of time. In her book Delia simply rambles on and on about eggs and different ways of cooking them, which, to be honest it actually did surprise me as I only ever thought that eggs could only be boiled (hard or soft), fried, scrambled, poached, devilled, pickled or benedicted and also mashed up in a cup with butter which my mum likes but I think that is revolting, when I went round to visit her last week she was eating that for her lunch, I don't know how she can eat that. There's also scotch eggs which are quite nice, Delia does have a good recipe in her book on how to make a nice scotch egg. All in all I did find Delia's How to Cook and Egg a huge disappointment, If you looking for a good story I would not recommend this book but if you want thousands of egg recipes I couldn't recommend it more. If it's a good story you're after then I suggest that you buy The Man Who fell asleep, it's beezer!

I award A Year in the Life of the Man Who Fell Asleep by Greg Stekelman five stars and a WG Sinclair big double thumbs up.
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Great off-beat and funny
I keep a copy of this book handy for when I feel a bit low or jaded. It never fails to speed me up and make me laugh and every time I read it I think, 'When is Greg Stekelman... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Nellie Cat 4
1.0 out of 5 stars Worst book ever.
This is the worst book I've ever read. And I don't really like saying that about a book because so many writers have to go through the hoops to get something published. Read more
Published on 10 Aug 2010 by Canarian
1.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely pointless (or am I missing the point?)
After reading some of the reviews on Amazon for this book I was really looking forward to reading it on holiday. Read more
Published on 7 Jun 2008 by David C
5.0 out of 5 stars truly original voice
this series of short essays/chapters covering a year in the author's life is so funny and idiosyncratic! i stayed up way too late reading it, wanting to read 'just one more'. Read more
Published on 2 May 2007 by meggo
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Extremely funny, strange, unique, surrealist; depressing in the good way. Not much to say that hasn't been mentioned, except that you MUST buy this book. You won't regret it. Read more
Published on 13 Feb 2007 by ZKS
4.0 out of 5 stars A literary hallucinogen
The book is a diary of sorts, as the title suggests, spanning a year in the life of the protagonist 'the man who fell asleep'. Read more
Published on 26 Sep 2006 by Sausage cabbage
5.0 out of 5 stars A work of genius
This book is hilarious! A work of genius. I love it. It's got everything you want in a book: a good story, it's really funny, it makes you think and it's a great gift for friends. Read more
Published on 26 Aug 2006 by Hypno Toad
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Discussion Replies Latest Post
Come on - why don't we write our own book right here in the fiction forum ? I'll do the first sentence, and then jump in....hold on, here we go... 7216 3 hours ago
Nobody reads on the loo do they ? not really - and yet so many people have books in the loo ! 19 5 hours ago
Self-published books: pain or gain? 6126 6 hours ago
Spend an erotic night of BDSM, Domination/submission, and exhibition with Jim and Kay this weekend.. 47 6 hours ago
What is the POINT of zombie novels, exactly? 135 7 hours ago
Can anyone recommend a good book 108 7 hours ago
Good true crime books? 172 14 hours ago
want to move away from the celebrity auto/biography- ideas please 514 3 days ago
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback


Amazon.co.uk Privacy Statement Amazon.co.uk Delivery Information Amazon.co.uk Returns & Exchanges