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How the Dead Live - Will Self
How the Dead Live
by: (author)
"How the Dead Live" - Booker nominee Will Self's hilarious novel about the afterlife. "Scathingly entertaining". ("The Times"). "Lily is a colossal heroine, a nighttown Molly Bloom...What begins as a satiric novel of ideas ends as a surprisingly moving elegy". ("Guardian"). Scabrous, vicious and... show more
"How the Dead Live" - Booker nominee Will Self's hilarious novel about the afterlife. "Scathingly entertaining". ("The Times"). "Lily is a colossal heroine, a nighttown Molly Bloom...What begins as a satiric novel of ideas ends as a surprisingly moving elegy". ("Guardian"). Scabrous, vicious and unpleasant in life, Lily Bloom has not been improved by death. She has changed addresses, of course, and now inhabits a basement flat in Dulston - London's borough for those no longer troubled by breathing - but if anything her temperament has worsened. Finding it hard to deal with the (enforced) company of a calcified, pop-obsessed foetus, her dead, foul-mouthed son and three gruesome creatures made of her own unwanted fat, she must find something to do with her time. So how do the dead live? And what happens when they stop being dead? "The work of a novelist writing at the height of his powers. It is a horror story, a love-me-do story, a full-frontal assault on the seven deadly sins - and a celebration of them. Lily may be an old cow but she's good company". ("Evening Standard"). Will Self is the author of nine novels including "Cock and Bull"; "My Idea of Fun"; "Great Apes"; "How the Dead Live"; "Dorian, an Imitation"; "The Book of Dave"; "The Butt"; "Walking to Hollywood" and "Umbrella", which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He has written five collections of shorter fiction and three novellas: "The Quantity Theory of Insanity"; "Grey Area"; "License to Hug"; "The Sweet Smell of Psychosis"; "Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo"; "Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys"; "Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe" and "Liver: A Fictional Organ with a Surface Anatomy of Four Lobes". Self has also compiled a number of nonfiction works, including "The Undivided Self: Selected Stories"; "Junk Mail"; "Perfidious Man"; "Sore Sites"; "Feeding Frenzy"; "Psychogeography"; "Psycho Too" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker".
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Format: paperback
ISBN: 9780141040172 (0141040173)
Publisher: Penguin
Pages no: 416
Edition language: English
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Community Reviews
Blogged Out Ma Nut
Blogged Out Ma Nut rated it
3.0
Not his best, by any stretch. The first 180 or so pages were amazing, where it might well have stopped and been named "How the Living Die." The whole book is undeniably well-written: unfortunately, Will was kicking the gear while he wrote this, and his delirious mind needed a focus. I'm glad he's ov...
me reading books
me reading books rated it
1.0
I gave up. I read the prologue and the first chapter and decided to put it away. Initially I liked the idea behind the story but reading it put me in such a bad mood that I can't go on. I am sure Self's writing is different and good but all this death and dying stuff is too much for me to handle rig...
NinthWanderer
NinthWanderer rated it
I'm reading this, I'm nearly finished with the section in which Lily is describing her own death from cancer, and I'm wondering what kind of old woman I'll be. Will I be a tragic figure, having lived a life alone and slowly watched all of my hopes and dreams waste away? That may be my greatest fear....
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