This wonderful novel tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra & her extraordinary family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Cassandra's eccentric father is a writer whose first book took the literary world by storm but he has since failed to write a single word & now spends most of his time reading detective novels from the village library. Cassandra's elder sister, Rose
- exquisitely beautiful, vain & bored
- despairs of her family's circumstances & determines to marry their affluent American landlord, Simon regardless of the fact she does not love him. She is in turns helped & hindered in this by their bohemian step-mother Topaz, an artist's model & nudist who likes to commune with nature. Finally there is Stephen, dazzlingly handsome & hopelessly in love with Cassandra. Amidst this maelstrom Cassandra strives to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries, which candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle's walls, & her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has captured the heart of the reader in one of literature's most enchanting entertainments

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Cassandra Mortmain is no ordinary teenager. She belongs to an extraordinary family including a father suffering from writer's block & a lute-playing stepmother, Topaz, who communes with nature near the wild, tumble-down castle that is their home. Cassandra's diary reveals how their lives are changed forever two American brothers arrive to lay claim, not only to their home, but also their hearts. ...

It is 1989 & all over Europe Communism is crumbling. Arvid Jansen, 37, is in the throes of a divorce. At the same time, his mother is diagnosed with cancer. Over a few intense autumn days, we follow Arvid as he struggles to find a new footing in his life, while all the established patterns around him are changing at staggering speed. As he attempts to negotiate the present, he casts his mind back to holidays on the beach with his brothers, to courtship, & to his early working life, when as a young Communist he abandoned his studies to work on a production line.

I Curse the River of Time is an honest, heartbreaking yet humorous portrayal of a complicated mother-son relationship told in Petterson

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It is 1989 & all over Europe Communism is crumbling. Arvid Jansen, 37, is in the throes of a divorce. At the same time, his mother is diagnosed with cancer. Over a few intense autumn days, we follow Arvid as he struggles to find a new footing in his life, while all the established patterns around him are changing at staggering speed. As he attempts to negotiate the present, he casts his mind back to holidays on the beach with his brothers, to courtship, & to his early working life, when as a young Communist he abandoned his studies to work on a production line.

I Curse the River of Time is an honest, heartbreaking yet humorous portrayal of a complicated mother-son relationship told in Petterson

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It is 1989 & all over Europe Communism is crumbling. Arvid Jansen is in the throes of a divorce. At the same time, his mother is diagnosed with cancer. Over a few intense autumn days, we follow Arvid as he struggles to find a new footing in his life, while everything around him is changing at staggering speed. As he attempts to negotiate the present, he remembers holidays on the beach with his brothers, his early working life devoted to Communist ideals, courtship, & his relationship with his tough, independent mother
- a relationship full of distance & unspoken pain that is central to Arvid's life.
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As a small boy David Nobbs survived the Second World War unscathed, until his bedroom ceiling fell on him when the last bomb to be dropped on Britain by the Germans landed near his home. It was the nearest he came to the war, but National Service would later make him one of Britain's most reluctant soldiers. It was an unforgettable & often unpleasant experience.

As a struggling writer, David was catapulted into the thrilling world of satire at the BBC when he rang THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS with a joke & got through to David Frost, who sent a taxi for the joke. He never looked back. His greatness as a modern comic writer was confirmed by the publication of THE FALL & RISE OF REGINALD PERRIN, which he adapted into the immensely successful television series that has entered the fabric of British cultural life, through phrases, images & brilliant humour.

A mesmerising, beautifully told tale of life in writing & comedy, I DIDN'T GET WHERE I AM TODAY is the hilarious, poignant & very personal story of David Nobbs' life, which also describes some of the most famous comedians of the last century & captures a golden age of British television.



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As a small boy David Nobbs survived the Second World War unscathed, until his bedroom ceiling fell on him when the last bomb to be dropped on Britain by the Germans landed near his home. It was the nearest he came to the war, but National Service would later make him one of Britain's most reluctant soldiers. It was an unforgettable & often unpleasant experience.

As a struggling writer, David was catapulted into the thrilling world of satire at the BBC when he rang THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS with a joke & got through to David Frost, who sent a taxi for the joke. He never looked back. His greatness as a modern comic writer was confirmed by the publication of THE FALL & RISE OF REGINALD PERRIN, which he adapted into the immensely successful television series that has entered the fabric of British cultural life, through phrases, images & brilliant humour.

A mesmerising, beautifully told tale of life in writing & comedy, I DIDN'T GET WHERE I AM TODAY is the hilarious, poignant & very personal story of David Nobbs' life, which also describes some of the most famous comedians of the last century & captures a golden age of British television.



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