{"title":"Philip Hensher","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"a-small-revolution-in-germany","title":"A Small Revolution in Germany","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Small Revolution in Germany\u003c\/em\u003e is about growing up, or refusing to accept what growing up means; its about the small dishonest pacts that people make with their own futures; and its about the rare and joyous refusal to be disillusioned.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEveryone remembers what its like to be seventeen. The conversations you have; the ideas that burst on you; the kiss that transforms you. And then you grow up, and make a deal with adulthood. \u003cem\u003eA Small Revolution in Germany \u003c\/em\u003eis about that rapturous moment when ideas, and ideals, and passion crash over one boys head. And what happens in the decades afterwards? When you see the overwhelming truth when you are seventeen, why should you ever abandon that truth?  Spike is brought into a small, clever group of friends, bursting with a passion for ideas, and the wish to change the world. They smash up political meetings; they paint slogans on walls; they long for armed revolution; they argue, exuberantly, until dawn. In the years to follow, they all change their minds, and go into the world. They become writers, politicians, public figures. One of them becomes famous when she dies. They all change their minds, and make sensible compromises. Only Spike stays exactly as he is, going on with the burning desire for change, in the safe embrace of unconditional love. Alone from the old group, he is the only one who has achieved nothing, and who has never deviated from the impractical shining path of revolution he saw as a teenager. Thirty years on, photographs of the teenage group look like a bunch of celebrated individuals, with only one unknown face in it  Spike.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Goldsboro Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47263849677094,"sku":"a-small-revolution-in-germany","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0733\/4900\/5606\/files\/893f9689-3a27-4c8d-8a8f-d0f0b3751e78.jpg?v=1701087286"},{"product_id":"king-of-the-badgers","title":"King of the Badgers","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter the success of The Northern Clemency, shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Philip Hensher brings us another slice of contemporary life, this time the peaceful civility and spiralling paranoia of a small English town.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHanmouth, situated where the river Hand flows into the Bristol channel, is usually quiet and undisturbed. But it becomes the centre of national attention when an eight-year-old girl vanishes. This tragic event serves to expose the range of segregated existences in the town, as spectrums of class, wealth and lifestyle are blurred in the investigation. Behind Hanmouth's closed doors and pastoral fa?ade, the extraordinary individual lives of the community are laid bare. The undisclosed passions of a quiet international aid worker are set against his wife, seemingly a paragon of virtue to the outside world; a recently-widowed old woman tells a story that details her late discovery of sexual gratification; and the Bears have a memorable party. As the search for the missing girl continues, the case is made for increased surveillance, and old notions of privacy begin to crack.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eKing of the Badgers is a powerful study of the vital importance of individuality and the increasingly intrusive hand of political powers. Like its predecessor, it is another devastating  but frequently very funny  portrait of England from one of this country's finest novelists.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Goldsboro Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47264080658726,"sku":"king-of-the-badgers","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0733\/4900\/5606\/files\/242936a7-7bab-4c76-836d-f8bd56382116.jpg?v=1701092195"},{"product_id":"the-friendly-ones-signed-lined-dated","title":"The Friendly Ones - Signed, lined \u0026 dated","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe things history will do at the bidding of love\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOn a warm Sunday afternoon, Nazia and Sharif are preparing for a family barbecue. They are in the house in Sheffield that will do for the rest of their lives. In the garden next door is a retired doctor, whose four children have long since left home. When the shadow of death passes over Nazia and Sharifs party, Doctor Spinsters actions are going to bring the two families together, for decades to come.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Friendly Ones\u003c\/em\u003e is about two families. In it, people with very different histories can fit together, and redeem each other. One is a large and loosely connected family who have come to England from the subcontinent in fits and starts, brought to England by education, and economic possibilities. Or driven away from their native country by war, murder, crime and brutal oppression  things their new neighbours know nothing about. At the heart of their story is betrayal and public shame. The secret wound that overshadows the Spinsters, their neighbours next door, is of a different kind: Leo, the eldest son, running away from Oxford University aged eighteen. How do you put these things right, in England, now?\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSpanning decades and with a big and beautifully drawn cast of characters all making their different ways towards lives that make sense, \u003cem\u003eThe Friendly Ones\u003c\/em\u003e, Philip Henshers moving and timely new novel, shows what a nation is made of; how the legacies of our history can be mastered by the decision to know something about people who are not like us.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Goldsboro Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47264204194086,"sku":"the-friendly-onessld","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0733\/4900\/5606\/files\/2898cc90-1bb1-4bd4-a035-492b95f05887.jpg?v=1701094152"}],"url":"https:\/\/goldsborobooks.pro\/collections\/philip-hensher.oembed","provider":"Goldsboro Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}