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The Book of Dave

A Novel

By Will Self

(14)

| Paperback | 9781596913844

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Book Description

When East End cabdriver Dave Rudman’s wife takes from him his only son, Dave pens a gripping text—a compilation about everything from the environment, Arabs, and American tourists to sex, Prozac, and cabby lore—that captures all of his frustrations and anxieties about his contemporContinue

When East End cabdriver Dave Rudman’s wife takes from him his only son, Dave pens a gripping text—a compilation about everything from the environment, Arabs, and American tourists to sex, Prozac, and cabby lore—that captures all of his frustrations and anxieties about his contemporary world. Dave buries the book in his ex-wife’s Hampstead backyard, intending it for his son, Carl, when he comes of age.

Five hundred years later, Dave’s book is found by the inhabitants of Ham, a primitive archipelago in post-apocalyptic London, where it becomes a sacred text of biblical proportions and the template for a new civilization. Only one islander, Symum, remains incredulous. But, after he is imprisoned for heresy, his son Carl must journey through the Forbidden Zone and into the terrifying heart of New London to find the only thing that will reveal the truth once and for all: a second Book of Dave that repudiates the first.

The Book of Dave is a profound meditation upon the nature of religion and a caustic satire of contemporary life.

Critics

  • The gospel according to Dave

    The Book of Dave by Will Self 512pp, Viking, £17.99 A whole new future is inflating itself like a fat grape from the side of Dave Rudman's head. Dave's friends went to university, but, craving London "like an identity", he stayed behind, became a cab ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • Entirely Selfish, but not quite Swiftian

    The Book of Dave by Will Self Viking £17.99, pp496 Shortly before founding the Church of Scientology, that collection of extraterrestrial postulations favoured by the famous and, some say, vulnerable, L Ron Hubbard is said to have declared: 'The way ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

1 Review

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  • Quite enjoyed some of the uses of language (hard now not to think of the sun as the 'foglamp') but didn't find the underlying premise very convincing.

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    PossMan said on Jun 9, 2007 | Add your feedback

Book Details

  • Rating:
    (14)
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  • English Books
  • Paperback 512 Pages
  • Edition: Reprint
  • ISBN-10: 1596913843
  • ISBN-13: 9781596913844
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
  • Pub date: Oct 30, 2007
  • Dimensions: 1355 mm x 903 mm x 258 mm Just how big is that?
  • Also available as: Hardcover and Others
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ISBN Edition List Sale Seller
9781596913844 Paperback $15.95 $10.90 bn.com
$15.95 $13.33 The Book Depository
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