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Bournville

A moving, brutally funny portrait of Britain told through four generations of one family by the award-winning author of Middle England

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Bournville

By: Jonathan Coe
Narrated by: Peter Caulfield, Cara Horgan
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the bestselling, award-winning author of Middle England comes a profoundly moving, brutally funny and brilliantly true portrait of Britain told through four generations of one family

'A wickedly funny, clever, but also tender and lyrical novel about Britain and Britishness and what we have become' Rachel Joyce
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In Bournville, a placid suburb of Birmingham, sits a famous chocolate factory. For eleven-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 seventy-five years of social change, from James Bond to Princess Diana, and from wartime nostalgia to the World Wide Web, 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?

Bournville is a rich and poignant new novel from the bestselling, Costa award-winning author of Middle England. It is the story of a woman, of a nation's love affair with chocolate, of Britain itself.
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PRAISE FOR MIDDLE ENGLAND

'Brilliantly funny . . . a compelling state of the nation novel' Economist

'A comedy for our times' Guardian

'Very funny. . . a writer of uncommon decency' Observer

'The great chronicler of Englishness' Independent

© 2022 Jonathan Coe (P)2022 Penguin Audio

 20th Century Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Political Royalty Satire Fiction Comedy
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Critic Reviews

With his third novel in four years, Coe is on a roll; he tracks the fortunes of a family through snapshots of communal experiences, from the Queen's coronation through the 1966 World Cup to pandemic lockdown, in a moving, compassionate portrait of individual and national change
The way Coe starkly captures the paranoia and fear of the early days of the pandemic is impressive and he has written what he calls a "faithful account" of the death of his mother during lockdown. It makes an intensely affecting finale to a fine novel.
Few contemporary writers can make a success of the state of the nation novel: Jonathan Coe is one of them
Epic in scope, but personal in resonance (Elizabeth Day)
Coe's interwoven paeans to the lives of those rooted in the very centre of the UK - The Rotter's Club and Middle England among them - blend comedy, tragedy and social commentary in enjoyably memorable fashion, and his latest, Bournville, is no exception . . . Coe's particular gift is to understand how nostalgia, regret and an apprehension of what the future will bring might make us more, not less, empathetic to the frailties of those around us
Very tempting
In this affecting generational saga, framed by the pandemic and structured by seven milestone broadcasts, Jonathan Coe - known for his state-of-the-nation novels - once again takes the temperature of Britain
At heart Bournville is a novel designed to make you think by making you laugh, and the seriousness of the subject matter is tempered throughout by the author's piercing eye for the more ludicrous elements of human nature
A compelling social history that's sprinkled throughout with Coe's inimitable humour, love and white-hot anger
A hugely impressive state-of-the-nation tale
All stars
Most relevant
The story was interesting enough but not gripping. I found it hard to follow the characters, and remember who was who, as there were many with genetic British names. But this could be a side effect of an audio book.

Narrator was really excellent.

Great narration

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