Home
/
Fiction
/
Party Going
Party Going
Jul 8, 2025 11:05 AM

Author:Henry Green

Party Going

A group of rich, spoiled and idle young people heading off on a winter holiday are stranded at a railway station when their train is delayed by thick, enclosing fog. PARTY GOING describes their four-hour wait in a London railway hotel where they shelter from the grim weather and the throngs of workers on the platform below.

Reviews

The most gifted prose writer of his generation

—— V. S. Pritchett

Each of Green's books stands apart from the others as a separate feat in itself

—— Alan Pryce-Jones , Observer

Green's novels are sufficiently unlikle any others, sufficiently assured in their perilous, luminous fullness, to warrant the epithet incomparable...they have become, with time, photographs of a vanished England...Green's human qualities - his love of work and laughter; his absolute empathy; his sense of splendour amid loss - make him a precious witness to any age

—— John Updike

Green's works live with ever-brightening intensity--it's like dancing with Nijinsky or Astaire, who lead you effortlessly on.

—— The Wall Street Journal

Challenging

—— Peter Carty , Independent

Mengestu's finely written novel, his second, tackles family, the break-up of a marriage and the reinvention of a past... Finely written novel

—— Sunday Times

It is a measure of the novel's ultimate success that the narrative has real drive, and also reminds us that fiction really does matter

—— Christopher Potter , Sunday Times, Culture

There's no denying its emotional heft

—— Sunday Business Post

A wonderfully majestic and evocative tale of 18th century Russia at a key moment in history

—— Candis Magazine

An intensely written, intensely felt saga of the early years that shaped the 18th century's famous czarina, Catherine the Great. Her survival in the treachery of the Russian court was an amazing feat, and Eva Stachniak captures the fluidity and steeliness that propelled Catherine from a lowly German duchess to one of the towering figures of the century

—— Karleen Koen, author of Through a Glass Darkly

A riveting reconstruction of a crucial era in Russian history… shows iconic figures of the period as real people

—— BBC History Magazine

Covering the twenty years that turned Catherine the Great from a young bride on approval to the legendary Empress of Russia, Eva Stachniak's novel gives a magical insight into the hopes and fears that haunted the corridors of the St Petersburg palace. It brings alive the very tastes and textures of the mid-eighteenth century

—— Sarah Gristwood, author of Arbella and The Girl in the Mirror

An intimate portrait of 18th century girl-power

—— Independent

Lovely observations on a sibling relationship

—— Lesley McDowell , Glasgow Sunday Herald

Graceful and full of sharp observation and moments of understated pathos

—— Carol Birch , Guardian

[A] satirical debut about the newspaper business

—— Stand Point

A cutting, hilarious portrait of British print journalism... An entirely human story that brilliantly recreates and analyses the recent past

—— The Times

Those gripped by the escalating News International scandal might enjoy the latest newspaper novel Annalena McAfee's The Spoiler

—— Glasgow Herald

authentic, entertaining and draws on her own experience as an arts journalist

—— Daily Express

The Spoiler - set in the halcyon days before phone hacking - was one of the funniest and sharpest fleet street novels in years.

—— David Robson , Sunday Telegraph Seven

McAfee - herself a former journalist - evokes two distinct eras and styles of journalism, that of fearless frontline reportage and that of its successor: style-oriented, celebrity-obsessed features coverage... This is a pacy read that leaves little doubt in the reader's mind that one school of journalism deserves more mourning than the other

—— Alex Clark , Guardian

Marvellous satire...the novel is cunningly plotted and satisfyingly nuanced

—— Independent on Sunday

If the peek into the world of newspaper journalism afforded by the Leveson inquiry has you gasping for more, then this timely paperback release is perfect...a fiendishly funny (and frighteningly plausible) world of fiddled expenses and suspect tactics

—— Shortlist

Thoroughly enjoyable behind-the-scenes expose of an ambitious celebrity journalist's attempt to nail the scoop of her life

—— Metro

This is the paperback edition. The hardback appeared before the News Corporation bosses were dragged into the Commons. McAfee was either very prescient or close to the action, holding her fictional hacks to account for printing false stories gleaned from disreputable sources

—— Julia Fernandez , Time Out

This fictionalised version of HG Wells dramatises the author's life, which was full of politics, writing and women

—— Daily Telegraph

David Lodge's HG Wells was both a visionary and a chancer; as arrogant as he was insecure; with as many noble goals as base instincts; a mass of very human contradictions; as Lodge has it, a man of parts

—— Sunday Express
Comments
Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdbook.com All Rights Reserved