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The Best Intentions
The Best Intentions
Aug 2, 2025 3:09 AM

Author:Ingmar Bergman

The Best Intentions

The first novel in world renowned film-maker, Ingmar Bergman’s trilogy of novels plotting the fractious marriage of his parents

In 1909, Ingmar Bergman’s mother and father first meet. Anna is a nurse from a wealthy family; Henrik, a poor, trainee priest living with his lover. From the intensity of their courtship, to the difficult early years of their marriage, Bergman fictionalises his parent’s life before his birth, drawing the quiet, emotional sensitivity of his film-maker’s eye deep into the heart of his own family.

The Best Intentions is the first in renowned film-maker Ingmar Bergman’s loose trilogy of novels that plots the fractious marriage of his parents, continued in Sunday’s Children and Private Confessions.

Reviews

Bergman's affecting account of the romance between an upright divinity student and the daughter of an aristocratic family is based on the courtship of his own parents

—— Publisher's Weekly

Lush and devastating at once... The closest thing imaginable to a Bergman film without pictures or sound

—— The New York Review of Books

Anyone who wants to learn more about Russia and what could be the outcome of [Vladimir] Putin's rule should read the book. It's dark and dystopian, but it's a part of our life

—— Garry Kasparov , Time

Compelling . . . Devastating . . . Powerful . . . In Day of the Oprichnik, [Sorokin] combines futurological invention with political archaism to vicious satirical effect . . . It's as if hi-tech limbs had been grafted onto the torso of early modern statecraft: Wolf Hall meets William Gibson

—— Tony Wood , London Review of Books

One of the greatest tale-spinners since Dumas

—— Cleveland Plain Dealer

Lashings of excitement, colour and subtlety

—— The Times

Vivid, engaging, densely plotted - are almost certainly destined to be counted among the classics of popular fiction

—— New York Times

Deliciously dark

—— TOTAL Film

Last Shot by Daniel José Older was aimed to give some additional back story to the relationship between Han and Lando, but ends up giving readers so much more’

—— Fantha Tracks

A great portrayal of both Han and Lando

—— Outer Rim Reviews

A fizzy new homage... Schott burnishes the gleam.

—— New York Times

Glorious . . . undeniably an impressive, hugely enjoyable feat of ventriloquism.

—— Christmas Books , Country Life Magazine

It is hard not to warm to this hugely entertaining homage.

—— Mail on Sunday

The cast is a delight, with many characters who will be familiar to Wodehouse aficionados . . . his prose is elegant and charming and he captures the lilt and rhythms of the original . . . a warm, worthy and rollicking tribute.

—— Literary Review

This joyous and thoughtful tribute leaves you wanting more.

—— Sophie Ratcliffe , TLS

By Jove! It's a ripping old yarn... Dashed agreeably close to the master.

—— Daily Mail

A hugely enjoyable caper

—— The Week

There are laughs and admirable ingenuity in Schott’s confection

—— Irish Times

A book that is so close in spirit and style to the PG Wodehouse originals it’s like the real thing

—— The Sport

Top-notch fun.

—— S magazine

Succeeds triumphantly, both as light entertainment and as a tribute to the master

—— Country & Town House

In his first foray into PG Wodehouse homage/imitation/pastiche (whichever it may be) Schott appeared to hit the Wodehouse target dead on.

—— RTE

Jonathan Coe's Middle England is brilliantly insightful on the times we are living in

—— Mishal Husain, Books of the Year , Big Issue

Let me add to the chorus of praise for Jonathan Coe's new book Middle England. Easily my favourite of his since What a Carve Up! Which did for Thatcherism what Middle England does for Brexit

—— John Crace

An astute, enlightened and enlightening journey into the heart of our current national identity crisis. Both moving and funny. As we'd expect from Coe

—— Ben Elton

From post-industrial Birmingham to the London riots and the current political gridlock, it takes in family, literature and love in a comedy for our times

—— Guardian

Coe can make you smile, sigh, laugh; he has abundant sympathy for his characters

—— Scotsman

This book is sublimely good. State of the (Brexit) nation novel to end them all, but also funny, tender, generous, so human and intelligent about age and love as well as politics

—— India Knight

Probably the best English novelist of his generation

—— Nick Hornby

No modern novelist is better at charting the precariousness of middle-class life

—— Observer

An angry and exuberant book

—— Sunday Times on 'Number 11'

Jonathan Coe has established himself as one of the most entertaining chroniclers of our times

—— Tatler

You can't stop reading....I was haunted for days

—— Independent on 'Number 11'
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