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An Experiment in Leisure

Anna Glendenning

$22.99

Paperback

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English
Vintage
20 September 2022
A sharp and witty debut novel that is at once a tender portrait of youth and an exploration of the emotional costs of social mobility, the possibilities of leaving and returning, the meanings of work and the ways a woman learns to love women

'I adore this book! ... An Experiment in Leisure shows us the burning, intense, messy beauty of youth and what it means to be alive' Maxine Peake

'Can I get a refund?' I asked the bus driver.

'You taking the piss, love?'

It's the eve of Brexit, and Grace is supposed to have what she wants. She's swapped West Yorkshire for north London, her accent carefully edited. Her friends drink beer out of artful tins. She makes flat whites for people with berets. She's found a psychoanalyst.

But this fantasy of metropolitan cool is turning out to be more costly than she thought and Grace faces complicated crises of identity, class, sexuality and geography.

Can she remember how to love? Can she find a way home?

'A dizzying yet powerful read' Claire-Louise Bennett, author of Checkout 19
By:  
Imprint:   Vintage
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 129mm,  Spine: 19mm
Weight:   244g
ISBN:   9781529113600
ISBN 10:   1529113601
Pages:   304
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  ELT Advanced ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Anna Glendenning is a writer from Leeds. She was formerly an editor at And Other Stories, where books under her wing made the 2018 Man Booker International and Goldsmiths Prize shortlists. In 2017 she was shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize. She was born in 1991, is based in London and works in the engagement team at Kew Gardens.

Reviews for An Experiment in Leisure

An Experiment in Leisure is an absolutely riveting novel that is both full of life and full of loneliness. Glendenning's words blaze and bounce across the page, brilliantly evoking the bizarre paradox that dogs early adulthood - namely, feeling intensely self-conscious despite possessing only the merest most nascent sense of having a self. A dizzying yet powerful read -- Claire-Louise Bennett I adore this book! It's a short, sharp shot of oxygen straight to the soul. An exquisite mix of agonising pain and unbridled joy. An Experiment in Leisure shows us the burning, intense, messy beauty of youth and what it means to be alive -- Maxine Peake A stunning, vivid and very funny debut about loss, family and the search for self-knowledge and a meaningful life. It's about the language of the heart, and how encountering those who speak a common tongue can shape the course of a life -- Saskia Vogel This is such a special book. With deeply joyful pace, and rhythm, I grew as obsessed with the prose itself as I did with the plot and characters. As things in the Big World seem to get more binary, An Experiment in Leisure plunders the grey area with wit and forgiveness - and that's exactly where I wanted to be -- Tom Rasmussen Remarkably assured... An attractive aspect of Glendenning's writing is the warmth with which she suffuses not just Grace but her whole cast of characters -- Susannah Goldsbrough * Daily Telegraph *


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