-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A British copywriter house-sits at his composer friend Oskar's ultra-modern apartment in a glum Eastern European city. The instructions are simple: Feed the cats, don't touch the piano, and make sure nothing damages the priceless wooden floors. Content for the first time in ages, he accidentally spills some wine. The apartment and the narrator's sanity gradually fall apart in this unusual and satisfying novel.
Oskar has left several notes for his friend, gently instructing him in the proper maintenance of the flat. But over the course of one disastrous week, as the situation in (and out) of the apartment spirals out of control, the notes take on a more insistent - and creepily prescient - tone.
Anyone who has ever felt inferior to a perfectionist friend will sympathize with the narrator's plight. Wiles is a genuinely funny comic novelist in the tradition of those two earlier British W's, Wodehouse and Waugh.
"If you are a fan of Kafka, you should enjoy this novel, which is reminiscent of The Metamorphosis." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. [D]arkly humorous...a strikingly original debut." - Publishers Weekly
"Funny, beguiling, and quietly profound ... a wonderfully well-crafted debut." - Times Literary Supplement (UK)
"Guffaw-out-loud moments…married to the horrified recognition that provokes empathy. A very funny novel provoking schadenfreude and belly laughs." - The Independent (UK)
"Fawlty Towers crossed with Freud." - Daily Telegraph (UK)
"A nicely turned satire on the notion that the path to spiritual contentment lies in a pristine set of polished wooden floorboards... Care of Wooden Floors indicates that Wiles has an eye for beauty, but an even more impressive eye for ugliness. It's a novel full of impeccably stylish writing." - Guardian (UK)
"This is a terrific first novel, written with a very engaging deadpan wit, and an understated sense of the absurd." - The Times (UK)
"Highly idiosyncratic, well-written, with a vivid sense of place–and weirdly compelling." - Michael Frayn, author of Skios and Headlong
This information about Care of Wooden Floors was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Will Wiles is a journalist and contributor to Icon, a monthly architecture and design magazine in the U.K. His work has also appeared in Cabinet and New Statesman, among other publications. Will lives with his wife in London.
If you liked Care of Wooden Floors, try these:
by Miriam Toews
Published 2025
Internationally bestselling author Miriam Toews' memoir of the will to write-a work of disobedient memory, humor, and exquisite craft set against a content-hungry, prose-stuffed society.
by Souvankham Thammavongsa
Published 2021
Spare, unsentimental, and distilled to riveting essentials, these "emotionally devastating" stories honor the surreal, funny, and often wrenching realities of trying to build a life far from home (Sheila Heti).
by Fredrik Backman
Published 2015
In this bestselling and delightfully quirky debut novel from Sweden, a grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door. Winner of the 2014 BookBrowse Debut Novel Award.
L.A. Women by Ella Berman
Two ambitious writers in 1960s LA face betrayal when one writes a novel based on the other's life.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
