Kirjahaku

Keith Waterhouse is one of Britain’s most popular writers in nearly every field. This collection brings together for the first time his most celebrated plays from a career spanning more than forty years.Our Song is a warm, tender, romantic drama, infused with moments of great humour. Pulling himself out of the rut of his middle-aged executive lifestyle, Roger Piper stumbles into a sixteen-month tempestuous affair.Billy Liar tells the story of a funeral parlour worker with a humdrum life, who spends most of his time dreaming of ways to escape his drab existence in Yorkshire. Adapted from his celebrated novel.Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell Gambler, journalist, fervent alcoholic, four-times married Jeffrey Bernard writes the‘Low Life’ column for the Spectator magazine. Locked in The Coach and Horses in Soho overnight, he has time to reflect on a dissolute life.Good Grief is a sensitive, wryly humorous study of a middle-aged widow, coming to terms with bereavement, who finds the courage to break with the past.Mr and Mrs Nobody is an adaptation of George and Weedon Grossmith’s comic novel The Diary Of A Nobody and Mrs Pooter’s Diary. A respectable Victorian clerk has lofty social aspirations.

The classic comedy of a 50s youth trapped inside a Walter Mitty fantasy-world, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time.Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar was published in 1959, and captures brilliantly the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town. It tells the story of Billy Fisher, a Yorkshire teenager unable to stop lying - especially to his three girlfriends. Trapped by his boring job and working-class parents, Billy finds that his only happiness lies in grand plans for his future and fantastical day-dreams of the fictional country Ambrosia.

A sensitive, wryly humorous study of a middle-aged widow who finds the courage to break with the past. June keeps a diary in the form of private conversations with her late husband Sam, a national newspaper editor. Her stepdaughter, Pauline, determines to keep an eye on June. Likewise, Eric Grant, an ex-colleague of Sam's. But June strikes out on her own and befriends Duggie, who, like June, is lonely. June, however, discovers that Pauline, Eric and Duggie have their own hidden agenda.2 women, 2 men

Gambler, journalist, fervent alcoholic and four-times married Jeffrey Bernard writes the "Low Life" column for the Spectator magazine chronicling Soho life as well as offering a very personal philosophy on vodka, women and race-courses. From this, Keith Waterhouse has brilliantly constructed a play (the title being the euphemism used by the Spectator when Bernard is incapable of writing his column) which is set in the saloon bar of Bernard's favourite Soho pub, the Coach and Horses. Having passed out in the lavatory, Bernard awakes in the early hours of the morning to find himself alone and in the dark. Unable to contact the landlord, he is resigned to spending the rest of the night with a bottle of vodka and an endless chain of cigarettes, narrating a story of hilarious anecdotes and witty reminiscences which are enacted by two actors and two actresses who bring to life the various characters who populate Jeff 's world. Starring Peter O'Toole, later succeeded by Tom Conti then James Bolam, the play enjoyed a hugely successful run at the Apollo Theatre, London.

Grossly misrepresented in her ghosted memoirs, Page Three glamour girl Debra Chase determines to set the record straight. Here then is the truth about her dizzy rise to fame via Tulse Hill's most revered fashion school, her liaisons with the entire Seathorpe soccer team and the lecherous Sir Monty Pratt MP, and her ensuing downfall. Written with sardonic wit and compassionate insight, this is a masterpiece of characterisation and a wickedly entertaining satire on British society.

'Among the few great writers of our time' Independent'An exceptionally talented novelist' Sunday Times'Remarkable for the deep and unwavering insight it gives into child behaviour' The TimesSeen through the eyes of a young boy living on a council estate in a northern town, a pre-war childhood emerges that is universal in its everyday adventures, shifting allegiances, mysteries and occasional tragedy. Yet it is also one that is rooted firmly in a bygone era of innocence. Acclaimed on its first publication, There is a Happy Land marked the debut of a brilliant new talent and is now seen as a much-loved classic.

Keith Waterhouse's long-running column, which began appearing in the Daily Mail in 1986, won him numerous national press award. His characters Sharon and Tracy became a national institution, as did that venerable acadamy of English letters, the Association for the Annihilation of the Aberrant Apostrophe. The phlegmatic councillors of Clogthorpe and British Rail's brother-in-law Arnold are among the other regulars featured in this collection, which distils the wit and wisdom of a justly celebrated writer.

'The work of a master' Sunday Times'Effortlessly brilliant...a comedy of London life' Sunday TelegraphNo London neighbourhood more resmbles the restless downstream tide of the Thames than the ragged square mile of Soho. Ask the people who live there, like Christine Yardley, drag queen by night and grey-suited accountant by day; or Len Gates, self-appointed Soho historian and bore; or Jenny Wise, former starlet and now resident lush in the New Kismet club; or even Ellis Hugo Bell, wannabe film producer who dreams of moving to L.A. Daily, nightly, shift by shift, their numbers are swelled by immigrants flocking to work, eat, drink and loiter, from kitchen staff to dress designers, hookers to pushers to punters. Down into this human rabbit warren one evening slips Alex Singer, a student from Leeds in pursuit of his errant girlfriend, whose search takes him from club to pub and into contact with a rich cross-section of Soho life. Twenty-four hours, three deaths, one fire and one mugging later, seduced, traduced and befriended, Alex is on his way to the Soho Ball. In this fast, funny and superbly crafted novel, Keith Waterhouse draws a vibrant portrait of London's liveliest quarter and it's eccentric inhabitants.

Returning from the memorial service for her husband, a tough tabloid editor cut down in his prime, June Pepper sets about following his instructions to keep a journal as therapy. But both grief and the journal prove elusive. Distracted by a problem stepdaughter and by a liaison with a man she discovers wearing one of her husband's old suits, June finds bereavement far from straightforward. And as she empties skeletons from closets, she learns there is far more to life than death.

'Buy, borrow or beg Keith Waterhouse's outstanding new novel. I can't recommend it too highly. Waterhouse has an uncanny gift for recapturing every attitude, agony and phrase of childhood and youth.' - Daily Mirror 'I wished I'd written Keith Waterhouse's first novel; and now, even more, I wish I'd written his second . . . Billy Liar is very funny: funny in a wild and sardonic and high-spirited way without malice or cruelty.' - John Braine, author of Room at the Top 'A brilliant novel, in language fresh and sweet, with characters vivid and singular in an inventive and dynamic story. It teems, it bursts with originality.' - Saturday Review 'Extremely funny . . . its lambent humour, quick-changing from robust to the delicate, is always fresh . . . should gladden the hearts of even the most exacting readers.' - Daily Telegraph Billy Fisher feels trapped by his working-class parents, his unfulfilling job as an undertaker's clerk, and his life in a dull, provincial town. His only refuge is in his daydreams, where he is the leader of the country of Ambrosia. Unfortunately, Billy's wild imagination leads him to tell lies constantly: to his parents, his employer, and his three girlfriends. On one tragi-comic Saturday, as Billy plots his escape to a life of adventure and excitement in London, all his lies finally catch up with him, with hilarious and disastrous results. A smash bestseller and one of the great comic novels of the 20th century, Billy Liar (1959) inspired an award-winning film, a play, a musical, a television series, and a sequel. This edition marks the novel's first publication in America in more than fifty years and includes a new introduction by Nick Bentley and a reproduction of the original jacket art by William Belcher.

'The funniest book I've read for years' - The Times (London) 'Among the few great writers of our time' - Auberon Waugh, The Independent 'Well written and amusing' - Library Journal Keith Waterhouse's comic masterpiece Billy Liar (1959) introduced us to Billy Fisher, a seventeen-year-old undertaker's clerk whose inability to tell the truth led him into constant (and often hilarious) trouble with his parents, his employer, and his three girlfriends. It was a smash success, becoming a bestseller and winning widespread acclaim for both the novel and the classic film adaptation. In this 1975 sequel, Billy is thirty-three but still hasn't grown out of his propensity for lying. Stuck in a loveless marriage in a dismal town, where he has a dead-end job in local government, Billy seeks escape through his affair with Helen, who is also unhappily married. But once again he finds himself in danger of being undone by his lies: vodka martinis charged to his expense account, a wise-cracking alter ego named Oscar, a false police report about a stolen set of nonexistent golf clubs, an imaginary cat named 'Mr Pussy-paws' . . . Now the all-important town festival is approaching, but instead of doing the planning, Billy is busy trying to keep ahead of the suspicions of his wife, the police, and Helen's jealous husband. It all leads up to a disastrous and uproarious conclusion that The Times called 'side-achingly, laugh-aloud funny'. This edition includes a new introduction by Alice Ferrebe.

C. L. Jubb is thirty-six, married, gainfully employed, and active in his community, both in local government and as a volunteer youth leader working with disadvantaged boys. But as he narrates the story of his downfall, we begin to see that he is other things as well: a voyeur, a fetishist, a racist, an admirer of Mussolini, and above all, a man obsessed by his sexual fantasies. With its unforgettable protagonist - odious yet pitiable, vile yet oddly sympathetic - Keith Waterhouse's third novel is both a gripping case study of a social and sexual misfit and an unsettling but wickedly funny social satire. Jubb (1963) was a departure from Waterhouse's first two novels, the classic of childhood There is a Happy Land and the comic masterpiece Billy Liar, but like those works it was widely acclaimed by critics, who compared it favorably with Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. This edition, the first in decades, features a new introduction by Alice Ferrebe and a reproduction of the original dust jacket art. 'Magnificent ... an achievement that puts Mr. Waterhouse above all his contemporary novelists.' - Washington D.C. Star 'An important book and one of the finest in months ... a fascinating novel.' - Cleveland Plain Dealer ' A]dmirable . . . indeed a very funny book.' - New York Times