In-Flight Entertainment

In-Flight Entertainment

Summary

Poignant, funny and perceptive, Helen Simpson's fifth collection of runs the gamut of emotions and deals with birth, death and everything in between. We shift from a diary chronicling the dangers of life as a woman in the bleak 2040s, to two students falling in love then almost talking themselves out of it in an argument about the end of the world, to a heartfelt anti-cancer spell cast in the hope of protecting a friend.

Moving effortlessly between tragedy and comedy and packed with a host of distinctive voices, this is an outstanding collection from a master of the genre.

Reviews

  • When it comes to contemporary maestros of the short-story form, Helen Simpson is up there with Alice Munro... If they had any sense the 10:10 carbon-reduction campaign would distribute this book for free, such is its power
    Lucy Atkins, The Sunday Times

About the author

Helen Simpson

Helen Simpson's sixth short-story collection, Cockfosters, follows Four Bare Legs in a Bed (1990), Dear George (1995), Hey Yeah Right Get a Life (2000), Constitutional (2005) and In-Flight Entertainment (2010). A Bunch of Fives: Selected Stories (2012) includes five stories from each of her first five collections. She has received the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Hawthornden Prize and the E.M.Forster Award. She lives in London.
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