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Book of the week: The Young H.G. Wells by Claire Tomalin
Tomalin’s ‘compulsively readable’ book shows how Wells became the ‘great prophet of the modern age’
In 2017, Dan Rhodes “severed all ties” with his long-standing publisher, Canongate, following a row over missing royalties, said David Sexton in The Sunday Times. His new novel is an act of revenge, targeting the “whole books business”.
In the village of Big Bottom, a “preposterous literary festival” is being held – at which arrives Wilberforce Selfram, a “tall, cadaverous writer” known for using absurdly long words and for pronouncing everything as “symptomatic of a broad cultural malaise”. Fun is poked at various other literary eminences: J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie, the festival director Peter Florence. “The effect is just hilarious”: I read this novel in one sitting, “laughing like a banshee”.
It didn’t have that effect on me, said Adam Roberts in The Guardian. The satire feels very outdated, and the overwhelming focus on the Will Self character “unbalances the whole”.
The Week
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Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Yes, it’s cartoonish and rather uneven, said Rosemary Goring in the Scottish Herald. But it’s an “enjoyable romp” – one that “nails many pretensions, not least the literati’s overblown sense of self-importance”.
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
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