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€17.99
From the bestselling author of Middle England and Mr Wilder and Me comes a brilliant new state of the nation novel
In the Birmingham suburb of Bournville, a family celebrate VE Day in 1945. With the joy of such an occasion there also come larger national questions about the nature of the horrific war the country has just been through. Following this family through generations as they navigate seventy-five years of drastic social change, from wartime nostalgia and English exceptionalism to the World Cup and coronavirus, domestic secrets and national myths leave characters and a country adrift, bewildered and divided.
Bournville is the story of who we are – at our worst, and best. From bestselling author Jonathan Coe comes a novel of rare humour and humanity, a novel that holds up a mirror to our past and our present.
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In Bournville, a placid suburb of Birmingham, sits a famous chocolate factory. For 11-year-old Mary and her family in 1945, it’s the centre of the world. The reason their streets smell faintly of chocolate, the place where most of their friends and neighbours have worked for decades. Mary will go on to live through the Coronation and the World Cup final, royal weddings and royal funerals, Brexit and Covid-19. She’ll have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Parts of the chocolate factory will be transformed into a theme park, as modern life and the city crowd in on their peaceful enclave. As we travel through 75 years of social change, from James Bond to Princess Diana, and from wartime nostalgia to the Internet, one pressing question starts to emerge: will these changing times bring Mary’s family – and their country – closer together, or leave them more adrift and divided than ever before?
| Weight | 0.446 kg |
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| Dimensions | 23.4 × 15.3 × 2.6 cm |
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| Cover | Paperback |
| Pages | 432 |
| Language | English |
| Edition | Export ed |
| Dewey | 823.92 (edition:23) |
| Readership | General – Trade / Code: K |
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