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Going Gently
 
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Going Gently (Paperback)

by David Nobbs (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Going Gently + The Complete Pratt + Pratt a Manger
Price For All Three: £22.47

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Product details

  • Paperback: 412 pages
  • Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd; New edition edition (25 Jan 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099414651
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099414650
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 55,243 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #2 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > N > Nobbs, David

Product Description

Review
"In this more serious work...David Nobbs celebrates the resilience and generosity of the human spirit." - "Independent"

Mail on Sunday
‘We should be thankful for the continuing brilliance of David Nobbs … Going Gently is richly funny and rich in many other ways. Buy it’

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Going Gently
70% buy the item featured on this page:
Going Gently 4.4 out of 5 stars (16)
£5.99
The Complete Pratt
11% buy
The Complete Pratt 4.5 out of 5 stars (4)
£10.49
The Reginald Perrin Omnibus
9% buy
The Reginald Perrin Omnibus 4.9 out of 5 stars (10)
£10.39
Pratt a Manger
6% buy
Pratt a Manger 4.7 out of 5 stars (3)
£5.99

 

Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars David Nobbs at his best, 12 April 2006
By james-Arundel "james-arundel" (Arundel, West Sussex, U.K.) - See all my reviews
  
Having just finished reading this wonderful book for the third time, I am once again left completely satisfied by the read and yet utterly bereft to have reached the end.
As another reviewer observed, Nobbs hits precisely the right note of intertwining comedy/tragedy as two sides of the same coin. Kate was a witty, charming and deeply lovable character, seemingly able to hold her own in any situation, except perhaps in the area of her heart. The accounts of her various relationships/marriages are described to perfection, each quite different, yet all profoundly moving, illustrating the fact that life is not black and white: that you can love someone you are not with, or be with someone who you do not love (enough). The supporting characters are colourful and diverse, from the rather dull and conventional offspring of Kate herself (so often true that the children of someone extraordinary are very ordinary), to the various eccentricities of her parents and extended family: her spinster sister Enid and her tactless and outspoken sister-in-law Bunny. Nobbs is the master of the understatement, and often says much more about his characters in a few well chosen words than another writer could in a chapter.
For anyone who has not read David Nobbs before, this novel is a jewel in his crown, but the crown is heavily bejewelled, and the "Bit of a do" novels and the Pratt series are also well worth dipping into.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A most ambitious book, and David's finest to date., 31 May 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: going gently (Hardcover)
A brilliant new novel from Britain's top comic novelist. Going Gently tells the story of 99-year old Kate Copson's life, in flashback form, while lying paralysed in a hospital bed after a stroke. From her upbringing and sexual awakening in a Swansea suburb, through the marriage of her five husbands to the murder of one of them by her son, this is a most ambitious book which delivers on all levels. Inspired by the death of his mother, David Nobbs has captured the entire life of the heroine without skimping on details, and deals with disability and old age beautifully (the present-day scenes describing Kate's ward-mates and their increasing senility are some of the funniest in the book). Unable to move, Kate rewinds the video of her life and plays the most memorable portions of it - her job as a history teacher; as an artist's wife in a Cornish commune; as a factory tycoon's wife in the Midlands; and her writing and television career as a pensioner. The murder of her fifth husband left Kate with the frustration of not knowing which of her three sons - for she knew it was one of them - had murdered him. From her hospital bed she sifts through the clues like an amateur detective and eventually eliminates two of them. Nobbs has maintained his wonderful eye for period detail, and delivers a briliantly descriptive narrative. A very moving book, yet very funny; a rollercoaster ride through one person's eventful life, yet painting an elaborate portrait of every chapter. If you enjoyed his Reginald Perrin novels, A Bit Of A Do or his Henry Pratt trilogy, you will love Going Gently.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Going Gently by David Nobbs, 5 Aug 2002
This review is from: going gently (Hardcover)
No-one does it better - makes you laugh and cry at the same time that is - than David Nobbs.

His portrait of a woman, Kate Copson, and her family is brilliant.

Nobbs' book opens as Kate is on her death bed. She is days away from her 100th birthday. She has had a stroke but while her body is immobile her mind can move anywhere it likes.

She chooses to take the reader on a review of her eventful, sex-filled, love-laden life.

She is determined to live but she also has a political conscience, dignity and compassion.

This novel is filled with laughs - but will also produce many a tear as Kate looks back on her failures and victories, her husbands and her family lovers.

Written in true Nobbs' I didn't get to be the writer I am today without striving to understand human nature and the meaning of life, it is unputdownable.

Loved this Nobbs book the most except for A Bit of A Do. There is a lot of Kate Copson in Rita Simcock. But while Rita starts by being an ugy duckling who becomes a swan, Kate is never anything but beautiful and outstanding.

Nobbs always seems to be in love with his leading ladies - and invites his readers to fall for them too.

Every woman who reads this book, wants to be Kate, loved, loving having lived her life to the full faces death without fear.

Confirms Nobbs as the best writer of comedy and observer of human nature known to British literature.

His nuances of language are as perfect as his ability to twist a knife so gently you don't feel it sting til it's pierced your heart.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Tedious and not very funny
Oh dear, when the blurb on a book proclaims this to be the author's best book and his most ambitious, you know you're in for a disappointment. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jl Adcock

5.0 out of 5 stars Writer in top form
I've always found David Nobbs a bit frustrating. I wish he would exercise some quality control. Some of his books are decidedly ordinary while other really are top notch. Read more
Published 14 months ago by M. Cassidy

5.0 out of 5 stars A DEATH BED COMEDY
Who else but David Nobbs could write about a woman lying in hospital on her death bed and make a novel moving and hilarious by turns as Kate Copson remembers her life from her... Read more
Published 18 months ago by M. Drake

1.0 out of 5 stars Awful
Having read the wonderful newspaper and readers' reviews, I was expecting a genuinely clever and witty read - along the lines of the excellent Jonathan Coe. Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2005

5.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't put it down
This is a truly excellent book. Really well written - I couldn't put it down. It made me laugh out loud in places and sad in others. Read more
Published on 14 Aug 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Welshcakes and Barabrith.......
Going gently is one of the best books i have read for some time. Being a real book lover i often find books i quite literaly love, Going Gently is different, it really is special... Read more
Published on 25 Jul 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars This is how life should be lived
This book makes you realise that life isn't a dress rehersal, and no matter what happens, everything is for a reason and you should just make the most of it, because soon enough... Read more
Published on 6 May 2001 by Karen Wilson

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable but light
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, but I wouldn't describe it as deeply thought provoking or gripping. Read more
Published on 5 April 2001 by shursey@eyoung.es

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, sad and inspirational
You're grabbed by the first paragraph : a frail old lady, trapped in a coma, with a wickedly irreverent mind, is being patronised by a nurse with an "eating... Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful stuff
Of course, it's impossible to dislike David Nobbs: that's like saying you don't like hot buttered toast by an open fire when it's raining outside. Read more
Published on 13 Feb 2001 by Jennifer Colgan

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