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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Feb 2015, 464 pages
Paperback:
Feb 2016, 480 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Rebecca Foster
Buy This Book
Insightful and humorous, Nick Hornby's latest does what he does best: endears us to a cast of characters who are funny if flawed, and forces us to examine ourselves in the process.
Set in 1960s London, Funny Girlis a lively account of the adventures of the intrepid young Sophie Straw as she navigates her transformation from provincial ingénue to television starlet amid a constellation of delightful characters. Insightful and humorous, Nick Hornby's latest does what he does best: endears us to a cast of characters who are funny if flawed, and forces us to examine ourselves in the process.
She didn't want to be a beauty queen, but as luck would have it, she was about to become one.
There were a few aimless minutes between the parade and the announcement, so friends and family gathered round the girls to offer congratulations and crossed fingers. The little groups that formed reminded Barbara of licorice Catherine wheels: a girl in a sugary bright pink or blue bathing suit at the center, a swirl of dark brown or black raincoats around the outside. It was a cold, wet July day at the South Shore Baths, and the contestants had mottled, bumpy arms and legs. They looked like turkeys hanging in a butcher's window. Only in Blackpool, Barbara thought, could you win a beauty competition looking like this.
Barbara hadn't invited any friends, and her father was refusing to come over and join her, so she was stuck on her own. He just sat there in a deck chair, pretending to read the Daily Express. The two of them would have made a tatty, half-eaten Catherine ...
With Funny Girl, Hornby tries out a historical setting for the first time; his six previous novels comment on their contemporary (1990s–2010s) setting. With its focus away from contemporary times, this might not be vintage Hornby, but is a memorable evocation, nevertheless, of the Swinging Sixties in Britain...continued
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(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster).
Funny Girl is set in the Swinging Sixties in Britain in the world of television shows and their production.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, got its start in 1922 with professional radio shows. Regular television service began in 1936 and has continued ever since. The 1940s saw the first instance of live television, a boon during war reporting. One of the most important events of the 1950s in Britain was Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, and many people bought televisions specifically so they could watch coverage of it.
With the 1960s and 1970s came color television and some of the most enduringly popular British comedies, including some that made it across the pond to America:
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