Editions

The Rotters' Club

  • Imprint: Penguin

  • ISBN: 9780241986479

  • Length: 416  Pages

  • Dimensions: 181mm x 25mm x 111mm

  • Weight: 226g

  • RRP: £8.99

The Rotters' Club

'Sometimes I feel that I am destined always to be offstage whenever the main action occurs. That God has made me the victim of some cosmic practical joke, by assigning me little more than a walk-on part in my own life . . .'

Coming of age in 1970s' Birmingham, teenager Benjamin Trotter is about to discover the agonies and ecstasies of growing up. Whether it is first love or last rites, IRA bombs or industrial strife, prog versus punk rock, expectations of bad poetry or an unexpected life-changing experience involving lost swimming trunks, The Rotters' Club is a heartfelt and hilarious portrait of a particular time and place featuring characters recognisable the world over . . .

'Very funny, a compulsive and gripping read' The Times

'Hugely entertaining' The Observer

'A book to cherish, a book to reread, a book to buy for all your friends' Independent on Sunday

  • Imprint: Penguin

  • ISBN: 9780241986479

  • Length: 416  Pages

  • Dimensions: 181mm x 25mm x 111mm

  • Weight: 226g

  • RRP: £8.99

Reviews

  • One of those sweeping, ambitious yet hugely readable, moving and richly comic novels that you find all too rarely in English fiction ... a masterpiece

    Daily Telegraph

  • Very funny ... a compulsive and gripping read. Coe has achieved that rare feat: a novel stuffed with characters you really care for

    The Times

  • A book to cherish, a book to reread, a book to buy for all your friends

    Independent on Sunday

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About the Author

Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Coe is the author of thirteen novels, all published by Penguin, which include the highly acclaimed bestsellers What a Carve Up!, The House of Sleep, The Rotters' Club, Number 11 and Middle England, which won the Costa Novel of the Year Award and the Prix du Livre Européen. He is also the author of a biography of B.S Johnson, Like a Fiery Elephant, and The Broken Mirror, a children's book.

Jonathan Coe

Read more

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Recommendations

What I'm reading: Jonathan Coe

The author of Costa Book Award-winner Middle England talks us through what's on his bedside table at the moment, from vintage psychological thrillers to French bestsellers.
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News

8 Penguin books shortlisted in the 2019 Costa Book Awards

Spanning across five categories, the nominated books range from memoirs, first novels and the very best in poetry.
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Extracts

Number 11 by Jonathan Coe

In this extract, we meet some of the characters that feature throughout the five interlinked stories that make up Number 11, a biting satire on modern day London which takes aim at austerity, social media and the social classes

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