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Sideways
 
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Sideways (Paperback)

by Rex Pickett (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
RRP: £10.99
Price: £7.69 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

Sideways + The Sideways Guide to Wine and Life + Sideways [DVD] [2004]
Price For All Three: £17.56

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Product details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Saint Martin's Press Inc. (1 Feb 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0312342519
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312342517
  • Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 14 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 97,646 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
"A fresh take... credit screenwriter Pickett for coming up with a debut that goes some distance... Skillful work about a friendship between two ultimately likeable guys."
- "Kirkus Reviews"
"[A] lively debut... Pickett takes his readers on a jolly ride."
- "Publishers Weekly"
"A buddy novel in the cinematic vein of Swingers... Pickett plays the sex-and-the-single man angle for all its worth here, nodding occasionally at such larger themes as friendship and romance. Call it Nick Hornby lite."
- "Booklist"


Synopsis
SIDEWAYS is the journey of two men, Miles and Jack, as they leave Las Vegas en route for Santa Ynez and Jack's impending nuptials. For Jack the weekend represents his final days of freedom, while for Miles, who has divorced his wife, lost his money and his passion for life, the week long road trip becomes an opportunity to evaluate his past, future and self. A raucous road trip complete with fine wine, SIDEWAYS is a thought-provoking and often hilarious novel about men, friendships and human relationships.

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Sideways
85% buy the item featured on this page:
Sideways 4.0 out of 5 stars (6)
£7.69
Sideways [DVD] [2004]
5% buy
Sideways [DVD] [2004] 3.6 out of 5 stars (121)
£4.88
The Sideways Guide to Wine and Life
4% buy
The Sideways Guide to Wine and Life
£4.99
Sideways [Original Soundtrack]
3% buy
Sideways [Original Soundtrack] 4.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£11.98
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars "We were drinking a memory", 2 Oct 2004
By M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Sideways (Paperback)
Rex Pickett, in his novel Sideways has probably created two of the most endearingly loveable characters of recent years. Both men are full of petty denials and insecurities about love, sex and life, but their immutable friendship, and their ability to laugh off their respective troubles, makes for a terribly funny, and heartfelt story as we follow their escapades throughout Santa Ynez wine country.The movie version of Sideways will be released later this month, so it will be interesting to see what director Alexander Payne does with this story. At times, the book seems a little contrived, reading like a budding screenplay, rather than a piece of literary fiction, but the sparkling dialogue and the fabulous descriptions of the local wine growing country will keep most readers entertained. Sideways is unquestionably one of the best "buddy" stories to be released in some time. Also, readers don't have to know anything about wines and wine growing to appreciate the detailed wine tasting elements of this story. Mike Leonard October 04.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Every bit as entertaining as the film, 31 Dec 2005
By Chris Pearson (Gloucestershire, UK) - See all my reviews
  
I loved this book. The characters are as large as life, I laughed out loud, and learnt something about wine. Although I read it after seeing the film, the screen version takes nothing away from the enjoyment of this novel. Oh, and by the way the ending differs from the screen version.....
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Endlessly disappointing book spawns astonishingly good film in ironic shock reversal, 19 Mar 2009
By B. Ziman-Bright (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
...or so the tabloid headlines might have read, in the weeks after Sideways (the movie) was released and the public inevitably sought out the book of the film. I was among them in being enchanted by Paul Giamatti's comically depressed and lovably amoral portrayal of Miles, the book's protagonist, and Thomas Haden Church's equally good casting as his equally amoral (yet somewhat more upbeat) best-friend Jack. So after contemplating what kind of wonderful, witty and wine-infused novel could have spawned such a timeless classic, I purchased the above.

Big mistake.

"Rex Pickett," the book's dust-jacket warns ominously, "is a screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles. This is his first novel." Alarm bells immediately started to ring; but it could be a masterpiece, I told myself, the first of many - it could be a debut novel like Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything is Illuminated" or Alex Garland's "The Beach".

It isn't.

Rex Pickett is quite obviously a screenwriter trying to write a novel. His dialogue is authentic but over-simplified, in the way that Hollywood dialogue often is. At times, the conversations sound so real that Pickett must simply have sat in a bar and eavesdropped and written down everything he heard.

The rest of the novel? It consists of thinly-disguised yet helpful stage directions, peppered with a flagrant abuse of adverbs ("I was moving frenetically from bedroom to living room packing for a road trip" - "Paul," says the director, "Move from the bedroom to the living room, as if packing for a road trip, and do it frenetically"); combined with what can only be described as pretentiously-interspersed 'Words of the Day' (highlights include the opening line: "The sun poured bright parallelograms of mote-swirling light through the venetian blinds of my rundown, rent-controlled house in Santa Monica") and topped-off with what are quite obviously the tasting notes from several bottles of wine ("The second Pinot was a single-vineyard from the nearby storied Rochioli property. It had notes of cardamom and exotic berries.")

I wasn't surprised to find out that the screenplay for Sideways was adapted by none other than its original author - having read the novel, I honestly believe that the adaptation process would have required little more than some judicious re-formatting and cutting-down of text.

In spite of the novel's many flaws, Rex Pickett is clearly a good screenwriter. He has researched his subjects to the smallest detail, his dialogue is authentic, and the plot itself is fresh and worthwhile. This 'first novel', however, was quite obviously never intended as such. It was always going to be the 'book of the film', even before the film, because as a book it unfortunately has very little merit. It is a tangle of awkward descriptions, pretentious phrasing and clunky set-pieces which are ascribed no real signficance - all of which leaves as bitter a taste in the mouth of the reader as a bottle of sour, corked wine.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars The movie is better
In the first time in the history of western civilization, we have a book that is not nearly as good as the film.

What a disappointment! Read more
Published 19 days ago by A. Biggins

5.0 out of 5 stars Sideways
I bought the book as a present. It arrived very quickly. Nice quick easy order.
Published 3 months ago by that andy mac

5.0 out of 5 stars Evocative
I love this book too, just like the other reviewers here. I hope Rex Pickett will write more - it's fabulous stuff.
Published 5 months ago by blackbour

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