For Richer, For Poorer

Reviews / Votes

For Richer, For Poorer seizes the reader with its first sentence and never lets go. Victoria Coren writes, on several levels, with wit, honest, and perfect freshness. * * Martin Amis * * Vicky Coren is Britain's most successful woman poker player and her story, unlike most poker stories, has a happy ending. It is also funny, shrewd and - for a poker player - astonishingly modest and frank. A class act. * * Al Alvarez, author of THE BIGGEST GAME IN TOWN * * Is it a brilliant story about a woman succeeding in a man's world? No. Poker isn't a man's world. It's Victoria's world. And this is a brilliant story about her working this out. * * Dave Gorman * * I read this book in one righteous gulp. Vicky Coren is the only one who is capable of writing it, and she's turned in a beauty. It's faithful, epic, and true to every loveable miscreant she's faced across the green baize. I will pick up this book again and again. * * Jesse May * * This miseducation of a poker player is terrifically funny and terribly moving. Vicky Coren plays cards like a demon and writes like an angel. * * Patrick Marber * * Thrilling, tender and fantastically romantic. Winning at poker is the next best thing to being a rock star. * * Louise Wener * * Female professionals remain a rare breed [in poker], few of whom are blessed with Coren's powers of insight and articulacy . . . [An] intensely personal backdrop turns Coren's book into an absorbing and unusual slice of autobiography. -- Anthony Holden * * Daily Telegraph * * Thoroughly enjoyable memoir of a life spent playing poker. -- Simon Parker * * bookgeeks.co.uk * * Just read Victoria Coren's poker memoir. It's gripping, touching & funny. I loved it & I've never played poker. * * David Mitchell * * A terrific poker book and a terrific memoir . . . engaging, lucid, full of verve and a pleasure to read. This book is also really funny. These pages are crowded with fascinating people. There is also an unexpected resonance and depth. What more can you ask from a read? * * Observer * * Honest, funny, highly personal and nostalgic memoir about friendship and belonging. * * Financial Times * * Coren tells the story of her unorthodox rise to poker fame with wit, panache and considerable candour . . . It makes for a nail-biting read * * Mail on Sunday * * A book so rich in detail, so full of laughter, that you feel as if the coolest member of your family has just let you in on a secret so delicious you will savour it for ever. * * The Times * * For Richer, For Poorer is fresh, funny and moving. Coren writes insightfully about love, obsession, depression and illness - and poker, obviously, and how it helped her cope with life. Rarely has poker been written about so well, with drama and wit, and none of the usual tired virility. This is a wonderful book, worthy of comparison with the best - Al Alvarez's The Biggest Game In Town. Read them both. * * Literary Review * * With a beguiling blend of humour and honesty, shrewdness and candour, she wins the reader's heart in as much style as she won that life-altering tournament. [For Richer, For Poorer is] an absorbing and unusual slice of autobiography, rather than another addition to the heap of deadly dull poker manuals. * * Daily Telegraph * * A funny and moving memoir from a woman whose entire life is wrapped up in poker. It's packed with colourful eccentrics and hilarious anecdotes but doesn't hide from the dark side of the game. This is the nuts. * * Sunday Tribune * * A funny, wise and occasionally heartbreaking memoir. -- Dominic Wells * * London Lite * * Coren's entertaining anecdotes are interspersed with a commentary on the hands she played on the way to winning her one million dollar prize. Even though we know the outcome it makes for a nail biting read. -- Simon Griffith * * Daily Mail * * This book serves as a handy history of the game, something which Coren is uniquely positioned to deliver, having surfed the wave of poker's popularity boom but also been around long enough to be nostalgic for the old days, long before anyone ever dreamed there could be such things as internet poker millionaires. But this is really a funny and moving memoir . . . packed with colourful
eccentrics and hilarious anecdotes but doesn't hide from the dark side of the game. -- Pat Nugent * * Irish Tribune * * An entertaining and surprisingly personal book . . . Poignant, downbeat and funny. -- Julia Fleming * * Sunday Business Post * * This funny, moving and fascinating account of how a posh lass like her fell in love with the disreputable game is a great read from start to finish. -- Doug Johnstone * * Big Issue * * An eclectic vindication of a very demanding lifestyle. -- Amanda Bloss * * Waterstones Books Quarterly * * Part history of Poker, part personal revelation, this candid and insightful book tells the story of the game that made her a millionaire. * * Good Book Guide * * If you're interested in poker, you will adore Victoria Coren's memoir . . . if you're not interested in poker, you will adore it anyway. -- Sam Leith * * Spectator * * This funny, moving and fascinating account of how a posh lass fell in love with the disreputable game is full of hilarious characters, amusing set pieces and insight into the appeal of a game that has gone from pub backrooms to global enterprise. -- Doug Johnstone * * Big Issue * *