Cockfosters
Published on 3. November 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
160 pages
978-1-78470-198-7 (ISBN)
Description
Cockfosters is a funny, frank and forceful story collection dealing with ageing, ambition and the patterns of repetition and renewal found in long friendships and marriages. It opens irresistible new windows onto the world from Arizona to Dubai and from Moscow to Berlin. Turning both a panoramic and a zoom lens on the way we live now, these stories range through hitch-hiking in Bohemian forest-land to cresting the waves of the Aegean to the mending of hearts and the recovery of lost property at the end of the Piccadilly Line.
Helen Simpson writes with great warmth, wit and candour about the complexities of modern life, and this new collection shows why she is hailed as one of the best short story writers at work in the world today.
Helen Simpson writes with great warmth, wit and candour about the complexities of modern life, and this new collection shows why she is hailed as one of the best short story writers at work in the world today.
Reviews / Votes
This collection is a joy * Bookseller * Helen Simpson is a vital (and pleasurable) voice -- Melanie White * Independent on Sunday * These uplifting and sensitive tales act like a guide to 'the next phase' - whatever that may bring. -- Imogen Lycett Green * Daily Mail * Cockfosters is elegant, sane, and - while remaining firmly rooted in ordinary life - gently ground-breaking. -- Theo Tait * Sunday Times * Over the course of a quarter century, Simpson has assembled a body of work that delivers one of literature's richest accounts of the post-war lives of girls and women. -- Sarah Crown * Guardian * [Simpson's] stories are chamber pieces, acutely observed domestic miniatures, and born of modesty. -- Jon Day, five stars * Daily Telegraph * Reading Simpson's stories makes you feel less alone in the world: she's one of those writers who just seem to hit the nail on the head. She's funny, too. -- Cressida Connolly * Literary Review * Invigorating, aggressive wickedly funny short stories on the modern gender wars, exhausted motherhood and anxieties about work and getting older. -- CA, four stars * Metro * From varifocals to the menopause, a virtuoso of the short story turns her attention to the ageing process. -- Justine Jordan * Guardian * Elegant, understated and quietly funny stories. -- Cathy Rentzenbrink * Stylist *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
118 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78470-198-7 (9781784701987)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Helen Simpson's sixth short-story collection, Cockfosters, follows Four Bare Legs in a Bed (1990), Dear George (1995), Hey Yeah Right Get a Life (2000), Constitutional (2005) and In-Flight Entertainment (2010). A Bunch of Fives: Selected Stories (2012) includes five stories from each of her first five collections. She has received the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Hawthornden Prize and the E.M.Forster Award. She lives in London.