Ferdinand Mount

The deliciously sharp new novel from Ferdinand Mount, author of the Sunday Times Book of the Year Kiss Myself GoodbyeFerdinand Mount's stinging satire plunges into the dubious world of London PR firms, the back rooms of Westminster and the campaign trail in Africa and America. We follow the hapless Dickie Pentecost, redundant diplomatic correspondent for a foundering national newspaper, together with his stern oncologist wife Jane, and their daughters Flo, an aspiring ballerina, and the quizzical teenager Lucy. The whole family find themselves entangled in an ever more alarming series of events revolving around the elusive Ethel (full name Ethelbert), dynamic founder of the soaring public relations agency Making Nice.With echoes of Evelyn Waugh and The Thick of It, Making Nice is a masterly take on the madness of contemporary society and the limitless human capacity for self-deception.

Quizá Jeremiah Mount fue algo más que el compañero de juergas que aparece fugazmente en el diario de Samuel Pepys, quizá se convirtiera en su rival, y no sólo en el campo de la política y el amor, sino incluso en el de la literatura. Partiendo de esta hipótesis y con la reproducción de fragmentos de este diario, el autor (¿descendiente de Jeremiah Mount?) crea una novela sorprendente en la que se perciben los acusados contrastes entre las versiones de uno y otro acerca de unos mismos acontecimientos y personajes.

Gloriously inventive wonderfully entertaining wickedly knowing Read it and revel JOHN BANVILLE The unsung hero of his generation of novelists Astute funny and heartbreaking TANYA GOLD Corruption destruction danger and murder Welcome to the murky world of the super rich Timothy Timbo Smith part time healer and self styled security analyst travels down the dark canyons of global capitalism from short selling scams in the City to the depleted rainforests of Brazil His accomplices in this irresistible safari through the late modern world are two reformed alcoholics the lovely and brilliant Lee Lethal Thorold and her husband Professor Luke Deverill lecherous Oxford philosopher and caustic computer wizard Their misadventures are followed at a bewildered distance by the played out diplomatic correspondent Dickie Pentecost who tags along mostly because Timbo is the only man who can cure his agonising back and is always one step behind the Machiavellian actions of those who precede him From the author of the searing satire Making Nice comes his most entertaining perceptive and unflinching novel yet lifting the veil on the seedy realities of modern life

A sweeping history of emotion that spans the decades from renowned author Ferdinand Mount In this day and age whatever we think we feel you can be sure that the past has had a part to play in it In Soft Ferdinand Mount tells the millennium long history of emotion through vivid snapshots masterly storytelling and bizarre historical anecdotes Revealing all the weird and wonderful ways people in the past expressed their grief and joy Mount explores the shifting importance societies have placed on empathy for the misfortunes of others Each seismic moment Mount argues from the French Revolution to Civil Rights has had a corresponding sentimental revolution that has fuelled these great political turning points But during this long history powerful feelings have frequently come under attack No one wants to be accused of being sentimental its detractors call it soppy effeminate and populist the stuff of soap operas and pop songs The Reformation tried to stamp out excessive emotion the Victorians resolutely maintained their stiff upper lips and no one loathed sentimentality more than the modernists and yet today it is not the stoics who are ruling the roost we are living in an age of emotion This is a witty pacey story of the understanding of emotio