List Price: £7.99 Price: £3.99 You save: £4.00 (50%)
Media: Paperback Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Editorial Review:
Very funny, intense and exhilarating ... For the first time in fiction, it has truly captured the way we work
It's a long time since I've read a novel so painfully funny, or so absurdly true
Outstanding ... incisive, urgent, funny and snappily written ... The comedy debut of the year
Terrific
A dazzling as Franzen's The Corrections and as confident as Tartt's The Secret History ... Exceptional, very funny
They spend their days - and too many of their nights - at work. Away from friends and family, they share a stretch of stained carpet with a group of strangers they call colleagues. There's Chris Yop, clinging to his ergonomic chair; Lynn Mason, the boss, whose breast cancer everyone pretends not to talk about; Carl Garbedian, secretly taking someone else's medication; Marcia Dwyer, whose hair is stuck in the eighties; and Benny, who's just - well, just Benny. Amidst the boredom, redundancies, water cooler moments, meetings, flirtations and pure rage, life is happening, to their great surprise, all around them. "Then We Came to the End" is about sitting all morning next to someone you cross the road to avoid at lunch. It's the story of your life and mine.
Joshua Ferris was born in Chicago in 1975. He attended Iowa University and then worked in an advertising agency for four years. He now lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 2.5 / 5.0
Time to start judging a book by its cover To start this book was recommended by Richard and Judy, obviously they never read it or are completely void of any ability to judge a good book. Next, the book from the cover seems to tell the reader that this is a comedy, however once you start reading it and get into the plot you find yourself looking for a comedy and wondering when it will start. The book lacks any comedy and will more likely depress you than give you a laugh. From the blurb you also think the writer wanted to write a deep meaningful... more info
A Marvelous Read, but for a VERY Specific Audience I can understand the mixed reviews of this book, though I loved every page of it and wished it would never end. To appreciate it, you not only need to have worked in an office, you need to have worked in this KIND of office. I happened to work in two offices where everyone had their noses in everyone else's business, where people had conniptions over nonsense such as where their "legitimate" chair is located, and whether or not the axe will fall anytime soon. That it is set in the Spring and Summer... more info
Gave up - not funny or interesting Like the person before - I seldom give up on a book, but this just felt like a waste of my life. Couldn't fnd the humour or any real plot. Maybe it came good in the end - but I doubt it
Then we came to the end - and we were very glad that we did Life is short, far too short to spend chained to an office desk. This seems to be one of the messages in Joshua Ferris's debut. Well, life certainly is too short to spend reading books like this. If you believe the reviews, blurb and cover quotes, this poor attempt at a darkly satirical study of office politics and minutiae is a riotous romp that lays office life bare in hilarious fashion. The truth is that this book reads like it was written by someone who has read some other books about working in an... more info
