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Title: Number 11

Author: Jonathan Coe

Narrator: Jessica Hynes, Rory Kinnear

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-11-15

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Number 11 by Jonathan Coe, read by Rory Kinnear and Jessica Hynes.

This is a novel about the hundreds of tiny connections between the public and private worlds and how they affect us all. It's about the legacy of war and the end of innocence. It's about how comedy and politics are battling it out, and comedy might have won. It's about how 140 characters can make fools of us all. It's about living in a city where bankers need cinemas in their basements and others need food banks down the street.

It is Jonathan Coe doing what he does best - showing us how we live now.

Members Reviews:

Get listening to this Jack-in-the-box satire!

Coe's 11th novel is a sort of follow-up to his anti-Thatcherite 1994 'What a Carve Up!' but you don't need to have read it to enjoy this one, as it also stands alone. This is our society right now, illustrated by interlocking narratives crammed with characters representing various aspects of our broken Britain. It's like a box bursting with pop-up stories ready to smack you like a leering jack-in-the-box. By turns it's as savage as Swift, poignant, laugh out loud funny and the characters who jump out may incite our heartfelt sympathy, outrage or loathing. Above all it's wonderfully entertaining, although the conclusion flies into the realm of horror film. Degenerating into the realm of fantasy rather undermines the impressive force of the reality built up all the way through. But I can see it's Coe's last laugh.

Every unpopular aspect of Austerity Britain is slaughtered here - whether it's George Osborne's hypocritical whopper about the Cuts, 'We're all in it together' when the mega-rich untouched by everyday grind fly out to one of their multiple-million homes on the other side of the world, whilst a librarian on severely reduced hours spends the afternoon riding round Birmingham on the bus to keep warm; or whether it's a grandfather's life not considered cost-effective to prolong with the expensive drugs which the mega-rich tax-avoiders can afford to buy for themselves. I like the swipe at our plethora of lavish Prizes - the Prize for the best Prize and I would have laughed if it weren't so likely to be true at the Eastern European woman who decided paying taxes was taking up too much of her earnings, so became a dog-walker in Chelsea with 10 unloved trophy dogs at a time @ 20 cash an hour from her unseen employers locked behind security gates. Those houses in Chelsea either stand empty silently appreciating for their overseas owners, or have become mines (with the occasional unheeded fatal casualty amongst the workforce) as the owners order the mineshafts to make basements for swimming pools (with a high diving board and palm trees) and storage for rarely driven Lamborghinis.

The opening scenario of young Rachel (who grows up through the novel) with her older brother in a spookily locked church is brilliant and hooks the listener absolutely. Another outstanding section is poor one-hit-wonder-in-the-Sixties Val who is lured to take part in I'm a Celebrity Get me out of Here and suffers cruelly as a consequence.