Capital
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4.1 • 125 Ratings
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- £6.49
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- £6.49
Publisher Description
** From the author of The Wall **
Adapted into an Emmy Award-winning BBC One drama
'Effortlessly brilliant . . . hugely moving and outrageously funny.' Observer
The residents of Pepys Road, London - a banker and his shopaholic wife, an elderly woman dying of a brain tumour, the Pakistani family who run the local shop, the young football star from Senegal and his minder - all receive anonymous postcards with a simple message: We Want What You Have. Who is behind it? What do they want?
As the mystery of the postcards deepens, the world around Pepys Road is turned upside down by the financial crash and all of its residents' lives change beyond recognition over the course of the next year.
From the bestselling author of Whoops! and How to Speak Money comes a post-financial crisis, state-of-the-nation novel told with compassion, humour and unflinching truth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lanchester (The Debt to Pleasure) follows on the heels of 2010's I.O.U., a nonfiction dissection of the great recession, by covering much of the same territory in this barely allegorical study of class conflict and reversal of fortune. The affluent residents of London's Pepys Road suburb are a handy cross-section of late-2007 types: Roger Yount, a banker riding high and counting on his bonus to cover mortgages and the needs of his spoiled wife; Shahid, the son of Pakistani immigrants working the family shop; the 17-year old soccer prodigy Freddy Kamo; Quentina Mkfesi, an educated Zimbabwean refugee turned traffic warden; the elderly Petunia Howe, living repository of Pepys Road's postwar rise; and Petunia's grandson, a Banksy-type artist named Smitty. This is just a sample of the cast, most of whom begin receiving mysterious cards reading "We Want What You Have." Like clockwork, the quality of life on Pepys Road goes south, with arrests, injuries, illnesses, and financial undoing. But it's hard to care, with predictable and seldom insightful plot threads, and Lanchester reducing his characters to their socio-economic parameters as surely as the market itself. The result is an obsequious, transparent attempt at an epochal "financial crash" novel that is as thin as a 20-dollar bill.
Customer Reviews
An enjoyable read
Not my usual type of book but I thoroughly enjoyed it
Good read
Enjoyable read for the tube. Some very recognisable characters. Sometimes a bit too much scene setting and elaborate description which I found myself flicking past to get to the point. Overall I would recommend!
Enthralling
Absolutely glued to the pages. A modern, accurate representation of London life with relatable and fun characters. A super book!