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David Copperfield
David Copperfield
Dec 24, 2025 11:38 AM

Author:H.K. Browne,Charles Dickens,Ed Speleers,Jeremy Tambling

David Copperfield

Brought to you by Penguin.

Now a major film directed by Armando Iannucci, starring Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi and Ben Whishaw.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Ed Speleers. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Jeremy Tambling.

'The greatest achievement of the greatest of all novelists' Leo Tolstoy

In David Copperfield - the novel he described as his 'favourite child' - Dickens drew on his own experiences to create one of his most moving and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure. It is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters he encounters are his tyrannical stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant but unworthy school-friend Steerforth; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora; and the magnificently impecunious Micawber, one of literature's great comic creations.

(P) Penguin Audio 2020

Reviews

An excellent story...Written with a total command of naval expertise, without ever spilling over into pedantry, Mutiny on the Bounty is storytelling at its most accomplished

—— Independent

A bold and remarkable novel - a marvel of form and imagination that is also miraculously full of heart and compassion.

—— Dinaw Mengestu

Absent fathers, wayward children, generational strife and the sheer fatigue of new parenthood... Khemiri's prose has a zing and bite stylishly served by Alice Menzies's pacy, idiomatic translation...The Family Clause [has] an epic, as well as a comic, buoyancy.

—— Boyd Tonkin , Spectator

The dynamics of each relationship are superbly complex, and Khemiri's wry, comic touch gives a lightness to the inevitability as the children follow in their father's footsteps.

—— Catherine Menon , Guardian

Excellent... Exquisitely translated by Alice Menzies... What Khemiri achieves is not just an engrossing narrative but the complex portrait of a family that is both identifiable and distinctive, normal and strange.

—— Tabish Khair , Times Literary Supplement

An exceptionally well-constructed novel.

—— Irish Times

Satisfying . . . Khemiri succeeds at creating an infectious sense of melancholia as the poisonous patriarch is forced to reckon with the truth. In a slow build of quotidian moments, Khemiri constructs a familiarly flawed universe that lays bare what it means to be human.

—— Publishers Weekly

The Family Clause vibrates with rueful humour and quiet wisdom. The more you get to know the characters contained within it, the more you see how tremendously large Jonas Hassen Khemiri's heart must be. His redemptive vision is rare and needed in these dark times.

—— Joshua Furst

I was drawn into this fascinating story right from the beginning and couldn't let loose for days after I had put down The Family Clause. And now, some weeks later, I know I will never forget the grandfather, the son who is a father, the sister, or the girlfriend. They are here to stay in my mind, like those other fictional characters you never meet in real life, but who you would recognize on the street the minute you saw them. Their personalities are far from perfect, but because of that, you love them all the more for who they are.

—— Herman Koch

Behold the great innovator of Swedish literature, with a unique ability to fill his prose with energy and vigour.

—— Jönköpings-Posten

Smart and simple, with greatness hidden in the detail, in the patterns of human behaviour that are exposed, The Family Clause is Khemiri’s best novel yet.

—— Expressen

A rich tale, characterised by moments of real pain and flowing, beautiful language... a writer who should not be missed.

—— Borås Tidning

Khemiri devises a portrait that looks into the darkest recesses of family life, and he does so with great compassion. Our daily travails and subtle humiliations are revealed to us in both quiet tragedy and farcical comedy. These are the parents we never wanted to be and probably all - in one way or another - ended up becoming. Seeing ourselves so clearly makes this compulsively readable.

—— Dr Bryce Lease, Royal Holloway, University of London

A great deal of recognition and a great deal of humour. I laughed often and wholeheartedly.

—— Aftonbladet

A subtle uprising, an understated process of liberation and a tender defence of the trials of attempting to hold a family together... It is full of empathy and subtle humour.

—— SvD

Jonas Hassen Khemiri steps on the gas as he portrays the stresses and betrayals of life with young children. In his new novel, the recognition factor is a source of both laughter and discomfort.

—— Sydsvenskan

A tender, shimmering novel that moves effortlessly yet reaches so far, that covers betrayal, loyalty and unwritten rules... it is a pure vitamin shot for its readers.

—— M-Magasin

An homage to female rage and the bonds of friendship, Supper Club will entice readers like a gourmet feast and leave them just as satisfied

—— Library Journal

Williams explores the complex relationship many women have with their deepest desires

—— Time (Summer Reading Highlights)

A bacchanalian homage to women's rage and female friendship

—— Courtney Maum, author of 'I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You'

You'll want to feast on this book

—— Cosmopolitan

A love letter to those friends, both retained and lost, who have an irrevocable influence on who we are and how we understand ourselves. It's a powerful interrogation of the current status of women within western societies. But it is also a provocation to demand more, a challenge to hold each other to account, and an enticement to celebrate the vibrancy of women's lives with the raucous abandon they deserve. It's the counter fairy tale: biting the apple brought wisdom and confidence, not a loss of consciousness. No prince necessary

—— Women’s Review of Books

Rebellious and subversive... Williams excels at visceral descriptions of bodies and food alike

—— Mail on Sunday

A bold and fresh story about food, friendship and feminism...compelling reading.

—— i

Bold, wild and witty

—— The Sunday Express

A small utopia celebrating the intoxications of female friendship and standing as a private bulwark against patriarchy

—— TIME Magazine

A meditation on life, death and the stories told about both.

—— UK Press Syndication

The fiction about fiction that takes the breath away… Quichotte expertly does it again.

—— Michael Wood , London Review of Books

Funny and touching and sad and oddly vulnerable, rather like its eponymous hero… [Quichotte is] compelling.

—— Lucasta Miller , Spectator

Rushdie is a master storyteller who weaves his fictions and characters into such agreeable tapestries.

—— Sarah Hayes , Tablet

The novel's dazzling virtuosity and cascade of cultural references culminate in a final moving moment of hope

—— Jane Shilling , Daily Mail
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