Mr Finchley Takes The Road

Download or read book Mr Finchley Discovers His England written by Victor Canning and published by Prelude Books. This book was released on 2019-04-18 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mr Edgar Finchley, unmarried clerk, aged 45, is told to take a holiday for the first time in his life. He decides to go to the seaside. But Fate has other plans in store... From his abduction by a cheerful crook, to his smuggling escapade off the south coast, the timid but plucky Mr Finchley is plunged into a series of the most astonishing and extraordinary adventures. His rural adventure takes him gradually westward through the English countryside and back, via a smuggling yacht, to London. This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today. It has been dramatized twice for BBC Radio, with the 1990 series regularly repeated. What people are saying about the Mr Finchley series: ‘Wonderful character from a kinder slower England between the wars.’ ‘An overlooked gem. An innocent picaresque novel set in an arcadian version of mid 20th century England. The literary equivalent of naive painting, it narrates the adventures of a respectable upper middle-aged man who takes retirement.’ ‘An antidote to the rush of the early 21st century.’ ‘A thoroughly enjoyable stroll through a vanished England with some lovable characters. Don't expect modern, fashionable agonisings, here there is good, evil, and understanding. A lovely reminiscent wallow of a read.’ ‘Gentle well told simple story, full of pleasant surprises, and a mild mannered believable hero. Loved it to bits.’ ‘So gentle, it hurts.’ ‘There is a freshness about the writing which is charming and that disarms criticism. Don't expect any great profundities, a gripping plot or inter-character tensions - these books are of the world of Billy Bunter and William Brown - but do expect a very well-written and enjoyable romp through early twentieth-century England in the company of an engaging protagonist.’ ‘A delightful story of a man who finds himself jolted out of his comfort zone and taken on a journey beyond his wildest imaginings.’ ‘Another lovely book detailing the adventures of Mr Finchley in altogether far too short a series. Full of humour and a book I was sorry to finish as I wanted it to go on and on.’ ‘Highly recommended for anyone seeking an entertaining amusing read.’ ‘A delight to be transported to an England I never knew despite growing up in the 1950s and to experience the countryside through the sharp eyes of the author who obviously had a great love of all things rural.’ Editorial reviews: ‘Quite delightful, with an atmosphere of quiet contentment and humour that cannot fail to charm ... The longer we travel with Mr Finchley, the better we come to love him. He makes us share his bread and cheese, and beer and pipe. His delight at the beauties of the countryside and his mild astonishment at the strange ways of men are infectious.’ Daily Telegraph ‘His gift of story-telling is obviously innate. Rarely does one come on so satisfying an amalgam of plot, characterisation and good writing.’ Punch ‘A paean to the beauties of the English countryside and the lovable oddities of the English character... [Mr Finchley] runs into one astonishing situation after another, sticking gamely to his resolve that he must take things as they come and accept them.’ New York Times ‘What counts for most in the story, as it did for Mr Finchley, is his mounting pleasure in vagabondage and the English scene.’ The Times ‘There is such a gentle humour in the book ... Mr Finchley is the ideal Englishman.’ Daily Sketch

Download or read book Mr Finchley Takes the Road written by Victor Canning and published by Prelude Books. This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book 3 of the classic trilogy of humorous rural adventures through pre-war England Mr Finchley takes a fancy to a horse-drawn caravan that he sees for sale, but his new wife does not relish the prospect of a caravan journey so she goes to visit her brother, while he sets out to explore the countryside and go house-hunting. While learning to handle the horse and the caravan, he encounters a variety of eccentrics and country characters, and several unsuitable houses. It gradually emerges that the caravan contains a secret, and Mr Finchley finds himself in real trouble – until his wife comes to the rescue. This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today. It has been dramatized twice for BBC Radio, with the 1990 series regularly repeated. What people are saying about the Mr Finchley series: ‘Wonderful character from a kinder slower England between the wars.’ ‘An overlooked gem. An innocent picaresque novel set in an arcadian version of mid 20th century England. The literary equivalent of naive painting, it narrates the adventures of a respectable upper middle-aged man who takes retirement.’ ‘An antidote to the rush of the early 21st century.’ ‘A thoroughly enjoyable stroll through a vanished England with some lovable characters. Don't expect modern, fashionable agonisings, here there is good, evil, and understanding. A lovely reminiscent wallow of a read.’ ‘Gentle well told simple story, full of pleasant surprises, and a mild mannered believable hero. Loved it to bits.’ ‘So gentle, it hurts.’ ‘There is a freshness about the writing which is charming and that disarms criticism. Don't expect any great profundities, a gripping plot or inter-character tensions - these books are of the world of Billy Bunter and William Brown - but do expect a very well-written and enjoyable romp through early twentieth-century England in the company of an engaging protagonist.’ ‘A delightful story of a man who finds himself jolted out of his comfort zone and taken on a journey beyond his wildest imaginings.’ ‘Another lovely book detailing the adventures of Mr Finchley in altogether far too short a series. Full of humour and a book I was sorry to finish as I wanted it to go on and on.’ ‘Highly recommended for anyone seeking an entertaining amusing read.’ ‘A delight to be transported to an England I never knew despite growing up in the 1950s and to experience the countryside through the sharp eyes of the author who obviously had a great love of all things rural.’ Editorial reviews: ‘Quite delightful, with an atmosphere of quiet contentment and humour that cannot fail to charm ... The longer we travel with Mr Finchley, the better we come to love him. He makes us share his bread and cheese, and beer and pipe. His delight at the beauties of the countryside and his mild astonishment at the strange ways of men are infectious.’ Daily Telegraph ‘His gift of story-telling is obviously innate. Rarely does one come on so satisfying an amalgam of plot, characterisation and good writing.’ Punch ‘A paean to the beauties of the English countryside and the lovable oddities of the English character... [Mr Finchley] runs into one astonishing situation after another, sticking gamely to his resolve that he must take things as they come and accept them.’ New York Times ‘What counts for most in the story, as it did for Mr Finchley, is his mounting pleasure in vagabondage and the English scene.’ The Times ‘There is such a gentle humour in the book ... Mr Finchley is the ideal Englishman.’ Daily Sketch

Download or read book Mr Finchley Goes to Paris written by CANNING (VICTOR.) and published by . This book was released on 2019-05 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book 2 of the classic trilogy of humorous rural adventures through pre-war England. An ebullient Mr Finchley is about to propose marriage to a lady he had rescued from mishap, when he is sent to Paris by his firm. There he manages to upset a boat, adopt a stray orphan and get himself kidnapped. The fine tangle he gets into takes some unravelling! Only when eventually back in London does he complete the proposal of marriage that was interrupted at the start. Jerome Jerome meets Mr Bean in this gentle comedy series, which was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today. It has been dramatized twice for BBC Radio, with the 1990 series regularly repeated. AUTHOR: Victor Canning was a prolific writer throughout his career, which began young: he had sold several short stories by the age of nineteen and his first novel, Mr Finchley Discovers His England (1934) was published when he was twenty-three. Canning also wrote for children: his trilogy The Runaways was adapted for US children's television. Canning's later thrillers were darker and more complex than his earlier work and received further critical acclaim.

Download or read book How the Dead Live written by Will Self and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 1988 and Lily Bloom, a 65-year-old American lies dying of cancer in a London hospital. As her two daughters buzz around her and the nurses pump her full of morphine, she slides in and out of consciousness, outraged that there is so little time left and so many people still to disparage.

Download or read book Perfect written by Rachel Joyce and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry comes “a poignant, searing tale” (O: The Oprah Magazine) about a young boy who is thrown into the murky, difficult realities of the adult world. “A powerful book, rich with empathy and charged with beautiful, atmospheric writing.”—Tana French A nice house in a tony neighborhood. A hardworking husband. A private school for the children. From the outside, Diana has a perfect life. But her sensitive and observant young son notices that the other kids’ mothers are not like his own. They dress differently. Byron’s father prefers that his wife dress formally, in slim skirts and pointy heels. He gives Diana a Jaguar so neighbors will sit up and take notice. And they do. Then, one morning, during a shortcut to school through a poor neighborhood, something happens that Byron cannot shake and his mother refuses to acknowledge. Until she has no choice. In the weeks that follow, the façade of a happy family shows signs of distress. Diana makes a questionable friend, and an increasingly tense dance begins—between guilt and resentment, envy and regret—all leading to a tragedy and a shattering revelation.

Download or read book Have Space Suit, Will Travel written by Robert A. Heinlein and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2005-02-08 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A high school senior wins a space suit in a soap jingle contest, takes a last walk wearing "Oscar" before cashing him in for college tuition, and suddenly finds himself on a space odyssey.

Download or read book Middlebrow and Gender, 1890-1945 written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-03-11 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars of the middlebrow have demonstrated that the preferences and choices of both women writers and women readers have suffered considerably from the dismissive attitude of earlier critics. George Eliot’s famous attack on ‘Silly Novels by Lady Novelists’ set the tone for the long tradition of gendered disputes over the literary merit of works of fiction – a controversy which eventually coalesced with a class-based hegemony of taste in the so-called Battle of the Brows. The new research presented in this volume demonstrates that this gendered inflection of the critical debate is not only one-sided but tends to obfuscate the significance the middlebrow literary spectrum had for the wider dissemination of new concepts of gender. By exploring the scope of middlebrow media culture between 1890 and 1945, from household magazines to popular novels, the essays in this volume give evidence of the relative proximity that existed between middlebrow writers and the avant-garde in their concern for gender issues. Contributors: Nicola Bishop, Elke D’hoker, Petra Dierkes-Thrun, Stephanie Eggermont, Christoph Ehland, Wendy Gan, Emma Grundy Haigh, Kate Macdonald, Louise McDonald, Tara MacDonald, Isobel Maddison, Ann Rea, Cornelia Wächter, Alice Wood