Funny Girl by Nick Hornby
Barbara Parker is Miss Blackpool of 1964, but she doesn't want to be a beauty queen. She wants to make people laugh, like her heroine Lucille Ball. So she leaves Blackpool and her family behind, takes herself off to London, and gets a job behind the cosmetics counter of a Kensington department store, while trying to work out how she can get herself noticed. A chance meeting with an agent results in a new name and an audition for a new BBC comedy series. Sophie Straw's time has come.
Funny Girl is the story of a television programme, and the people responsible for it: the writers, Tony and Bill, friends since National Service and comedy obsessives; producer Dennis, Oxbridge- educated, clever, mild and devoted to his team in general and Sophie in particular; and Sophie's good-enough looking co-star Clive, who feels that he's destined for better things.
As the 1960s progress, and the British people fall in love with Sophie's sitcom, the pleasures of teamwork begin to wane: nothing can stay good forever, and the mess of real life will always intrude.
Nick Hornby's new novel, his first since Juliet, Naked, is about work, popular culture, youth and old age, fame, class and collaboration. It offers a captivating portrait of youthful exuberance and creativity at a time when Britain itself was experiencing one of its most enduring creative bursts.
About the Author
Nick Hornby was born in 1957. He is the author of five novels, High Fidelity, About a Boy, How To Be Good, A Long Way Down (shortlisted for the Whitbread Award) and Slam; three works of non-fiction, Fever Pitch (winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award), 31 Songs (shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award) and The Complete Polysyllabic Spree; and a Pocket Penguin book of short stories, Otherwise Pandemonium.
Nick Hornby lives and works in Highbury, north London.
Paperback | 352 pages
153 x 234 x 25mm | 459g
27 Nov 2014
Penguin Books Ltd
VIKING
London, United Kingdom
English
16 b/w photos
0670922811
9780670922819
Condition: Acceptable
A secondhand book that has been read and has obvious damage but is still intact and completely legible. Some minor damage to the cover, including very minimal scuff marks and some obvious creasing, but no holes or tears. The majority of pages are undamaged, with minimal creasing but no tearing. There's minor water damage at the bottom of pages 1-12, where you can see very minor crinkling where the water has been spilt and dried (does not in any way effect the eligibility of text). No pencil underlining of text, no highlighting of text, no writing in margins. No missing pages.