Humor

Quirky, bizarre, tragic, fiendishly funny, The Hotel New Hampshire is anything but a conventional family saga, though a family saga it certainly is. The Berry family are different. Love abounds - both healthy and incestuous. It is the overwhelming desire of the Berry father to run a hotel, which he does, with dubious success in both a former girls' school in New Hampshire, and in Vienna. It is the Berry children who grab the readers' attention, sympathies and love - all five of them: Frank (the eldest), Franny (the weirdest), John (the narrator), Lily (the writer) and Egg (the youngest). When Irving, or rather John, writes 'Frank's queer, Franny's weird, Lily's small and Egg is Egg' the initiated reader can do no other than shout a deafening 'yes, I know what you mean!' From there on,

Rob is a music junkie who owns record shop in Islington. Unable to make his relationship with Laura work, he seeks refuge in the company of the two hopeless guys, and in a one night stand, only to find that life with Laura has its unexpected attractions.

When you're 36, going on 18, life is about being hip, being cool, and embracing all that Mothercare has to offer ...