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Imprint: Chatto & Windus
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Published: 10/01/2019
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ISBN: 9781784742539
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Length: 288 Pages
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Dimensions: 222mm x 29mm x 144mm
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Weight: 407g
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RRP: £12.99
'I loved this beautiful book. It's tender and compassionate, written with exquisite care and verve, and so so SO funny' MARIAN KEYES
Professor Chandra is an expert at complex problems. There's just one he can't crack: the secret of happiness
In the moments after the bicycle accident, Professor Chandra doesn’t see his life flash before his eyes, but his life’s work.
He’s just narrowly missed out on the Nobel Prize (again) and even though he knows he should get straight back to his pie charts, his doctor has other ideas.
All this work. All this success. All this stress. It’s killing him. He needs to take a break, start enjoying himself. In short, says his doctor (who is from California), Professor Chandra should just follow his bliss.
He doesn’t know it yet, but Professor Chandra is about to embark on the trip of a lifetime.
-
Imprint: Chatto & Windus
-
Published: 10/01/2019
-
ISBN: 9781784742539
-
Length: 288 Pages
-
Dimensions: 222mm x 29mm x 144mm
-
Weight: 407g
-
RRP: £12.99
Reviews
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"Chandra is a delightful creation: peevish, intolerant, intellectually exacting, unwittingly eccentric, nerdy, needy let lovable. The book, like its picaresque hero, is a one-off"
Sunday Times
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"This brilliant and eloquent novel, which puts into words so many unutterable annoyances, is a sort of Zen satire in which tolerance and understanding mingle with hilarious criticism of contemporary mores. It’s a wonderful read"
Daily Mail
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"Rajeev Balasubramanyam gently pokes fun at the modern fondness for positivity, but tells a disarmingly positive story... The writing is elegant and witty and the comedy is always underpinned with humanity; a life without bliss is no life, and the gradual dawning of Chandra’s self-awareness is genuinely uplifting"
The Times
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"Balances satire and self-enlightenment... a surprisingly soulful family tale that echoes Jonathan Franzen’s Corrections in its witty exploration of three children trying to free themselves from the influence of their parents"
Observer
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"Uplifting literature, or up-lit as it’s called by publishers, is dominating the bestseller charts... One of the funniest is Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss by Rajeev Balasubramanyam... Beneath the comedy lie serious concerns. Wellness, capitalism, mollycoddled minds intolerant of political difference: Balasubramanyam’s issues are current"
Sunday Times
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"By turns charming and witty, this is an effortless, uplifting read that has many pertinent observations to make about family relationships"
Mail on Sunday
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"His journey provides a genuine look at what happiness is or might be, as well as being properly, heart warningly funny. A joyful take on grasping second chances"
Grazia
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"After the brilliant, stressed, cynical economist Professor Chandra has a serious accident, he is told to take a break and 'follow his bliss' to California. Little does he know he'll discover a thing or two about happiness"
Elle
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"A gentle ride of a book that tackles all of life’s big questions and also manages to be very, very funny"
Red
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"Balasubramanyam knows how to flex irony as if it were another bendable body part... Professor Chandra is a wonderful character — stodgy, flawed, contentious, contemptuous — yet vulnerable, insecure, lonely, repentent, and ridiculous enough to win our sympathy. In other words, as one of his children responds to his apologies, when they come, "You weren't pathetic, Dad. You were just human." In the end, Balasubramanyan's novel is a sort of Christmas Carol for a new age — in which uplifting sentiment comes drenched not in treacle but in potfuls of soothing organic herbal tea"
NPR
