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Coming Up for Air

Penguin Modern Classics

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

George Orwell's paean to the end of an idyllic era in British history, Coming Up for Air is a poignant account of one man's attempt to recapture childhood innocence as war looms on the horizon.

George Bowling, forty-five, mortgaged, married with children, is an insurance salesman with an expanding waistline, a new set of false teeth - and a desperate desire to escape his dreary life. He fears modern times - since, in 1939, the Second World War is imminent - foreseeing food queues, soldiers, secret police and tyranny. So he decides to escape to the world of his childhood, to the village he remembers as a rural haven of peace and tranquillity. But his return journey to Lower Binfield may bring only a more complete disillusionment ...

'Very funny, as well as invigoratingly realistic ... Nineteen Eighty-Four is here in embryo. So is Animal Farm ... not many novels carry the seeds of two classics as well as being richly readable themselves'
John Carey, Sunday Times

(P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Classics Village
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Simple , raw , honest at time humorous and weirdly relatable this book was enjoyable in all aspects . From the re living of his boyhood to the current time this story was fun , interesting and never dragged . The descriptive writing sets every scene perfectly and the authors pondering on perceptions i found truely comforting . Highly recommend

The struggles of men

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an extremely relatable commentary on idealisation and reminiscence. we can all sense bit of ourselves in the protagonist, and the message is to make the most of what we have at all times, in any given moment. great narration really suited the subject matter.

thoroughly enjoyable and easy to listen to start to finish.

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