Failure, Poetry and Wit Celebrate an Unordinary Life
Stories about ambition feel significantly warmer when failure is treated as raw material rather than a source of shame. Poetry, wit and an unconventional heroine give this novel a sharp comic bite, making it appealing to readers who appreciate intelligence paired with emotional generosity.
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Peck and Peck
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Failure, Poetry and Wit Celebrate an Unordinary Life
Stories about ambition feel significantly warmer when failure is treated as raw material rather than a source of shame. Poetry, wit and an unconventional heroine give this novel a sharp comic bite, making it appealing to readers who appreciate intelligence paired with emotional generosity.
- Book Synopsis
-
Batter Gray is worried about his future. Even when he was eleven, his classmates seemed to have settled on a goal: doctor, lawyer, broker, engineer. Good jobs that automatically command respect and security. Now Batter is in his early 20s, living in New York City, and he wants something different; something that alienates some people and bores most. Poetry. And yet-to him and exactly thirty-nine editors at a company called Peck & Peck-poetry not only represents the power of humanity but holds the key to its survival.
Batter was named after his mother's dog, who seemed to have achieved more in his short years on earth than he ever will. But as an identical twin who lost his brother at birth, Batter finds himself confronted by the everyday dualities that make up life: right vs. wrong, truth vs. lies, rejection vs. acceptance. It's almost as if his dead brother is a reminder: there are always two sides to every story.
No, wait. Make that three.
Ideal for readers who:
- Warm to witty fiction about poetry, failure and refusing respectable paths.
- Follow New York stories where ambition looks odd to everyone except the dreamer.
- Are curious about characters weighing art, possibility and unfinished lives.
- Appreciate comic intelligence with a sincere belief in language’s power.
- About The Author
- Bonnie Garmus is a coffee-dependent American novelist. Her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry, was a number one global bestseller and spent almost ninety weeks in the Sunday Times top 10. It was named by New York Times readers as one of the top 100 books of the 21st Century. Translated into over forty languages, Lessons in Chemistry was honoured with sixteen international literary awards, including the British Book Awards Author of the Year, Waterstones Author of the Year, and Hay Festival's Book of the Year. It was also selected by Queen Camilla for the Queen's Reading Room, and made into an Apple TV limited series. Peck & Peck is her second novel.
- Product Details
-
- ISBN
- 9781786588821
- Format
- Paperback
- Publisher
- Manilla, (13 October 2026)
- Number of Pages
- 432
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 234 x 153 mm
- Categories: