Comfort and Joy

Comfort and Joy

by IndiaKnight (Author)

Synopsis

This is the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of India Knight's darkly comic Comfort and Joy . It is read with humour and sensitivity by Lucy Brown, the star of the hit show Primeval . It's December 23rd and Clara Dunphy is running around Oxford Street like a blue-arsed fly trying to buy presents. She wants to make Christmas perfect: it's a lifelong ambition. And a challenging one at the best of times, even without taking her sixteen guests - sorry, loved ones - and their varying degrees of social dysfunction into account. Meanwhile, something weird has happened to her marriage, and the ho, ho, ho is thin on the ground. Why does Christmas have such an emotional hold over us? Why does family stuff hit the peak of its madness on December the 25th? And is it okay to want more than you have, when what you have seems so enviable from the outside? A blackly funny, tender dissection of the meaning of love - family love, sibling love, children love - Comfort and Joy will make you laugh and cry.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Publisher: Fig Tree
Published: 25 Nov 2010

ISBN 10: 1905490739
ISBN 13: 9781905490738

Media Reviews
Fabulous. Laugh-out-loud funny, moving and as cuddly as Santa Claus, this is perfect for snuggling up with over the Christmas holidays * Cosmopolitan *
I loved Comfort and Joy, a hilarious, bawdy yet touching portrait of Christmas over three years -- Jilly Cooper * Guardian Books of the Year *
So kindly and funny and affectionate that you could probably warm your hands on it. Miraculously, this is a feel-good story that manages not to be saccharine. There are a great many good jokes here ... but concealed amid the fun, like silver coins in a Christmas pudding, is a serious theme. This is a book you could safely give to practically anyone. Snap up plenty of copies to hand around under the tree * Spectator *
Touching...it will make you laugh, maybe make you cry and keep you reading past bedtime -- Lauren Laverne * Grazia *
A wickedly funny, painfully honest look at families, festivities and romantic love * Marie Claire *
Witty enough to make you laugh out loud, but there are moments of real emotion that keep the book from being too light * Psychologies *
Tender, tough, schmaltzy, witty and heart-warming all at once. Knight has a great comic touch - there are some wonderfully rude bits and a fantastic rant about the ridiculous expectations piled on 21st-century women to be perfect - and writes with a deceptive lightness. At the heart of this funny, affectionate novel is an acknowledgement that families, like love, come in odd shapes and sizes, and that both matter more than anything * Metro *
A superb ear for dialogue...wonderfully comic * Evening Standard *
Riotously high in laughs and glamour. I defy a festive grump not to be cheered by it * Independent Books of the Year *
Fast-paced and funny * Women & Home *
Author Bio
India Knight is the author of two previous novels: My Life on a Plate and Don't You Want Me. Her non-fiction books include The Shops, the bestselling diet book Neris and India's Idiot-Proof Diet, the accompanying bestselling cookbook Neris and India's Idiot-Proof Diet Cookbook and The Thrift Book. India is a columnist for the Sunday Times and lives in London with her three children.