Kitty Aldridge

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Kate-Atkinson

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

A Trick I Learned from Dead Men

Cryers Hill

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

Pop is an unforgettable creation... By some distance the most eloquent first novel I have read this century...If literary London can lionise Zadie Smith, it should pay Kitty Aldridge the same compliment. She has star quality

An authentic, gentle and genuinely funny account of ordinary life... This novel is at once life-affirming and important

Aldridge combines rich, poetic prose with an impressively light touch

A moving story, told with wit and invention, and the language shimmers in the heat-haze of sadness and loss. A truly original first novel

Kitty Aldridge is a real discovery, a writer of precision, delicacy and wit, and her first novel is a rare delight

During the heatwave of 1975, Maggie, thirteen, goes to live with her grandfather, Pop, in Sutton Coldfield. Pop's mission is to know everything: the annual Fox and Dogs pub quiz is looming. Maggie doesn't know everything, but she does know about the great comedians - Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper, Eric and Ernie - about country music, Shirley Bassie, and about how her mother died. 
 
Pop sings with the poetry of the suburbs and aches with the poignancy of adolescence. Kitty Aldridge has a wonderfully distinctive voice and a deliciously sharp eye for the extraordinariness of ordinary lives.

A brilliant first novel set in the 1970s, from an Orange Prize longlisted author.

Kitty Aldridge was born in the Middle East but grew up in England. A graduate of the Drama Centre, London, she has since worked in theatre, film, and television as an actress and writer. Her first novel, Pop (Cape, 2001), was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002 and shortlisted for the Pendleton May First Novel Award 2002. Her second novel, Cryers Hill, was published by Cape in 2007. Her short story, Arrivederci Les, won the Bridport Short Story Prize 2011 (Bridport Prize Anthology 2011). Her most recent novel is the critically-acclaimed A Trick I Learned From Dead Men.

Pop

Format:

Buy the book from:

Pop is an unforgettable creation... By some distance the most eloquent first novel I have read this century...If literary London can lionise Zadie Smith, it should pay Kitty Aldridge the same compliment. She has star quality

An authentic, gentle and genuinely funny account of ordinary life... This novel is at once life-affirming and important

Aldridge combines rich, poetic prose with an impressively light touch

A moving story, told with wit and invention, and the language shimmers in the heat-haze of sadness and loss. A truly original first novel

Kitty Aldridge is a real discovery, a writer of precision, delicacy and wit, and her first novel is a rare delight

About Kitty Aldridge

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter