maherbooks
Price: £7.74
In stock
68 used & new from £0.01
See All Buying Options
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
Barcelona Plates
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Barcelona Plates (Paperback)

by Alexei Sayle (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


5 new from £2.43 60 used from £0.01 3 collectible from £1.20
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover (...) 25 used & new from £0.01
Paperback £7.99 £5.89 27 used & new from £0.01
Audio Cassette (Audiobook) 6 used & new from £0.98

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Dog Catcher

The Dog Catcher

by Alexei Sayle
4.1 out of 5 stars (14) 
Weeping Women Hotel

Weeping Women Hotel

by Alexei Sayle
3.8 out of 5 stars (9)  £5.49
Mister Roberts

Mister Roberts

by Alexei Sayle
3.9 out of 5 stars (8)  £5.57
Overtaken

Overtaken

by Alexei Sayle
3.7 out of 5 stars (6) 
Alexei Sayle's Great Bus Journeys of the World (Methuen humour)

Alexei Sayle's Great Bus Journeys of the World (Methuen humour)

by Alexei Sayle
4.2 out of 5 stars (5) 
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Sceptre; New Ed edition (21 Sep 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0340767537
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340767535
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 1.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 287,813 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #8 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > S > Sayle, Alexei

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Comedians rarely make great fiction writers, the temptation to throw in cheap one-liners distracting them from any substantial narrative--which is why Alexei Sayle's first attempt at proper literature is a nice surprise. Although riddled with dark humour, his short story collection Barcelona Plates is actually best when he's being serious. Sayle has a knack for story-telling and a twisted imagination which creates perverse characters. They're mostly melancholic beings whose lives are in a rut when the smallest twist of fate changes everything--from the call centre employee who spills cream on her suit to the business woman who loses her keys. Especially good is "The Minister For Death", in which a retired pipe fitter from Liverpool discovers, after an incident returning from the chip shop with a steak pie, that old people are invisible in modern society and gains retribution as the "stealth codger".

After 17 years in London, Sayle's representation of his adopted city is powerful--from a nature reserve in Kings Cross to likely lads down Bermondsey, from wealthy Islington squares to Clerkenwell on a Saturday night. He eruditely describes the early evening Soho populace as, "Clerks in raincoats clutching beer bottles by the neck, standing outside bars looking up and down the street as if good times were about to arrive in a taxi."

Barcelona Plates is side-tracked from time to time by rants, such as Disneyland's rancid evil or the "stupidity" of recent comedy, mirroring Sayle's sardonic demeanour and acerbic monologues on TV. However overall, it's an entertaining collection of absurd yarns. --Sarah Champion --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.



Time Out

"Barcelona Plates will put a smile on your face and a chill down your spine"
See all Product Description

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Barcelona Plates
75% buy the item featured on this page:
Barcelona Plates 4.5 out of 5 stars (16)
Mister Roberts
10% buy
Mister Roberts 3.9 out of 5 stars (8)
£5.57
The Dog Catcher
6% buy
The Dog Catcher 4.1 out of 5 stars (14)
Weeping Women Hotel
5% buy
Weeping Women Hotel 3.8 out of 5 stars (9)
£5.49
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Social satire meets Grand Guignol: funny, bizarre,horrific, 25 Nov 2000
By A Customer
Sayle has both mellowed and hardened over the years; he's very much more sympathetic to some of his characters than he was in 'Train to Hell', but the world view here is still desperately dark and cynical. The protagonists (who are basically glove puppets for his usual, very funny style of observational surrealism) never achieve any kind of happy ending, and rarely end up better off than they were at the beginning. It's never their fault; they just tend to be in the wrong (or right) place at the wrong time.

Sayle manages to get off some vicious shots at the media world he simultaneously inhabits and despises (what did Vic and Bob - sorry, Nic and Tob - ever do to him?), but the real anger in these cleverly-constructed stories is directed at hypocrisy and stupidity on a wider scale, from rich Londoners living in a self-created bubble, to the Catholic Church, and most successfully in 'The Minister for Death', to society's attitude towards pensioners. Most of the time this works well; occasionally a slightly lighter touch might have worked better.

This isn't really a comedy book - despite the fact it contains some of the funniest stuff I've read in years (the end of 'My Life's Work' may have caused me physical harm from laughing so much). What humour it contains is as black as it gets, but all the more refreshing for being so.

It's unlike anything else you will read for years, which is recommendation enough in itself. If you like Sayle's stuff, buy it. If you're not sure, buy it anyway, as it slips down deceptively easily, but be aware that you'll need a dark sense of humour to get the joke in some cases.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Long Car journeys made easier by the original Fat B*****d!, 25 Jul 2001
This review is from: Barcelona Plates (Audio Cassette)
Barcelona Plates is probably the best talking book I have bought. Sayle's Tales of everyday folk in bizzare situations, and bizzare folk in everday situations is absolutely brimming with quirky humour, which is made all the more entertaining by Sayle's fast-paced and passionate delivery. From Barnaby's brush with a doomed royal couple, to the old-age hit man, these stories show the dark under-belly of the human soul, stripped down to it's rawest emotions. The M6 will never seem the same again!!
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars I Knew It..!, 3 Jan 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Barcelona Plates (Hardcover)
Alexei Sayle has been a hero of mine for years, from his stand-up, album, singles, series and now this! Everything he has done before seems to be as substantial as his cameo performances in Hollywodd movies. This is not to detract from his past work, but rather to mark the very real birth of a comic artist. He displays all the range of a contemporary writer, all the precision of attention of a stand-up artiste, and all the satirical malice of the truly English - but more than this, he does it so well it makes you want to write along with him, to get in on the game! I know that there have been critics of his apparent selling-out to the advertising world, but who can say that they would not do so to earn a living. It is one thing to have values, it is quite another to cripple one's self with them forever. And if it is the remuneration from television advertising that has been his mainstay while creating this masterpiece, then I hope to hear more of him on the page and in the advert breaks in future!
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and edgy
This is a vivid and deeply funny collection of often nihilistic stories from a man with a razor-sharp wit and an intelligent mind. Read more
Published on 20 May 2007 by J. Roberts

4.0 out of 5 stars I cant give 5 stars to anything...
..apart from David Sedaris I s'pose. Alexie Sayle has been around for awhile & lets be honest here, his live & TV output has been rotten & bloated for a decade. Read more
Published on 12 Jan 2004 by meddling_kids

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply excellent short story telling
The good short story is the hardest form of writing to master. Sayle produces enjoyable reading throughout this collection. Read more
Published on 19 Jan 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Black Humour at its best this is an excellent book - read it
This is an excellent book that fills out truly original ideas into short stories so that you can fully enjoy the build up to the punchline/twist. Read more
Published on 27 Nov 2000

4.0 out of 5 stars Full Plates Engaging food for thought
Alexei Sayle is one of the few Marxist comics out there working, and as such he has a slightly different take on the world. Read more
Published on 26 Nov 2000

2.0 out of 5 stars Emperors Old Clothes
Having watched Sayle ooze confidence on promotional televison appearances for Barcelona Plates I was sincerely hoping that the man who told Michael Parkinson about of the... Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2000

3.0 out of 5 stars Original, dramatic but a bit of a curate's egg.
This is an arresting collection of stories, from a writer who has depth and bleakness and poetry in his veins. Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
If you do nothing else today - buy this book, buy it now. Beautifully written, imaginitive, witty and wonderfully barbed.
Published on 16 May 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars Just very very good.
I tend to distrust people who espouse socialist principles for decades then push junk food to children for cash on tv. Read more
Published on 6 April 2000 by Jennifer Colgan

5.0 out of 5 stars astonishly brilliant
There has been no better, more original, or more darkly hilarious book published for decades. This is quite simply unparalleled genius, and anyone buying it will still be thinking... Read more
Published on 4 April 2000 by barbour@madasafish.com

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
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject





i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.