Number 11

This is a novel about the hundreds of tiny connections between the public and private worlds and how they affect us all. It's about the legacy of war and the end of innocence. It's about how comedy and politics are battling it out and comedy might have won. It's about how 140 characters can make fools of us all. It's about living in a city where bankers need cinemas in their basements and others need food banks down the street. It is Jonathan Coe doing what he does best ­- showing us how we live now.

About the Author :
Jonathan Coe is the author of thirteen novels, all published by Penguin, which include the highly acclaimed bestsellers What a Carve Up!, The House of Sleep, The Rotters' Club, Number 11 and Middle England, which won the Costa Novel of the Year Award and the Prix du Livre Européen. He is also the author of a biography of B.S Johnson, Like a Fiery Elephant, and The Broken Mirror, a children's book.

Review :
Coe is back doing what he does best. Number 11 is a baroquely plotted, densely allusive, heart-on-his-sleeve, state-of-the-nation satire, an angry and exuberant book....Coe is not just back, but back on top form You can't stop reading....I was haunted for days Coe's prose is always a delight...hugely enjoyable Jonathan Coe has established himself as one of the most entertaining chroniclers of our times. . . He has an enviable lightness of touch and is brilliant at portraying the lunacy of our time, when bankers need iceberg houses and their neighbours need food banks. He is often satirical, always compassionate. He brings us the usual high quotient of jokes, emotional engagement with the characters and commitment to old-school storytelling, complete with narrative twists and thrilling set pieces An incredibly Dickensian novel...it articulates all kinds of themes that will make the reader feel very angry...I enjoyed it hugely and read it pretty much in a single sitting. Whenever there was an interruption I felt really angry and you can't really ask more from a novel than that...Really satisfying Jonathan Coe rips into modern celebrity culture and the decadent lives of the super-rich in hs latest satire A restlessness would overtake me when I was separated from the book No modern novelist is better at charting the precariousness of middle-class life Coe creeps up stealthily, delivering a book bursting with narrative coups and delicious ironies. Presenting a picture of an ailing country close to collapse, despite the apparent health suggested by its millionaires' mansions and its confidently callous politicians, the book scares rather than laughs us into calling for reform Coe intriguingly depicts the social grievances of modern Britain My first Jonathan Coe book but it won't be the last...gloriously insane...It takes you into another space and time....Very beautiful It's dispiriting that, for a country that prides itself on its sense of humour, Coe has not been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.....Read Number 11 to see what an odd country Britain has become [Coe] has a fine ear for dialogue and mastery of comic plot: this is first-class entertainment The country needs Number 11....[Coe's] take-down of modern Britain proves he's still the UK's premiere national lampoon Number 11 is undoubtedly a political novel. It is also an interrogation of the purposes and efficacy of humour in exposing society's ills A richly enjoyable, densely textured and thought-provoking entertainment, Number 11 might not feature in many Kensington mansions, Swiss bolt-holes or private jets this winter. But perhaps it should' What Victorians called "a condition of England" novel...This sequel is a very good book indeed - let's hope that Coe goes for a trilogy Richly textured Undoubtedly a political novel. It is also an interrogation of the purposes and efficacy of humour in exposing society's ills [A] state-of-the-nation address Jonathan Coe has taken aim at the absurdity of modern life