Funny Girl
by Hornby, Nick
- Used
- Very Good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good /Very Good
- ISBN 10
- 0670922803
- ISBN 13
- 9780670922802
- Seller
-
HINDHEAD, Surrey, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London, United Kingdom: Viking. An ex library copy with none of the usual indicators other than a small sticker at the base of the spine of the dust jacket, spine slightly sunned. The jacket is unclipped and protected by a clear, removable cover. An excellent reading copy. . Very Good. Hardcover. 1st Edition. 1st Printing. 2014.
Reviews
On Jan 4 2015, CloggieDownunder said:
“What was he doing with her? How on earth could he love her? But he did. Or, at least, she made him feel sick, sad and distracted. Perhaps there was another way of describing that unique and useless combination of feelings, but ‘love’ would have to do for now”
Funny Girl is the sixth full-length novel by British author, Nick Hornby. Set, for the most part, in the mid-to-late 1960s, Hornby’s latest novel gives the reader an intimate look at the making of a TV comedy series. His TV show, cast and crew are fictional, but Hornby firmly establishes the era with historical fact, using mentions of real-life politicians, personalities and events, as well as photographs, an advertisements and a cartoon strip. By adding extracts of scripts, a book cover, reviews, and program notes, he gives the whole thing an authenticity that will delight readers familiar with those years.
Barbara Parker’s heroine is Lucille Ball, and her ambition is to be in comedy TV. She may be beautiful enough to win Miss Blackpool, but she gives it up in an instant to head to London, to become Sophie Straw, and, eventually, to audition for a BBC Comedy Playhouse show. Before too long, she is starring, as (ironically) Barbara from Blackpool, in a hugely popular sitcom series about a married couple, written by her comic heroes, Bill Gardiner and Tony Holmes, and titled “Barbara (and Jim)”.
Characters and dialogue are Hornby’s strengths, and he does not disappoint with Funny Girl. It is impossible not to like and care about this diverse bunch, despite (or perhaps because of) their many and varied flaws: vanity, confusion about sexuality, selfishness, superficiality, timidity. There is plenty of humour, much of it dry, the sort that elicits wry chuckles rather than laugh-out-loud guffaws (“Davie remained undeterred. In his mind’s eye, he said, he always saw Clive as a cowboy. Clive had always thought that Davie needed his mind’s eye tested”).
Topical themes of the sixties feature: feminism, homosexuality and the sexually permissive society (“He was talking about the times they all suddenly lived in, and how hard it was not to be a small boy in a sweet shop with no cash register”). This is a novel in which life imitates art, but also, often, the reverse, as the writers of the show rely on what they know. This funny and moving novel is another brilliant dose of Hornby at his best.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Weysprings Books, IOBA, PBFA (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 008218
- Title
- Funny Girl
- Author
- Hornby, Nick
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- ISBN 10
- 0670922803
- ISBN 13
- 9780670922802
- Publisher
- Viking
- Place of Publication
- London, United Kingdom
- Date Published
- 2014
Terms of Sale
Weysprings Books, IOBA, PBFA
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Weysprings Books, IOBA, PBFA
Biblio member since 2010
HINDHEAD, Surrey
About Weysprings Books, IOBA, PBFA
Weysprings Books is an independent bookseller based in Surrey, UK, exclusively selling on the internet. We specialise in modern first editions. We use internationally accepted terms to describe our books and endeavour to reflect their true condition in our descriptions. We regret that, due to compliance regulations, we are unable to fulfil orders to Germany and France.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Reading Copy
- Indicates a book that is perfectly serviceable for reading. It may have a defect or damage. As such, reading copy is not a...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Sunned
- Damage done to a book cover or dust jacket caused by exposure to direct sunlight. Very strong fluorescent light can cause slight...