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Long Way Down | 
 enlarge | Author: Nick Hornby
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
Buy Used: $0.01
New (2) Used (77) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  224 reviews
Sales Rank: 2935343
Format: Import
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0140287027
EAN: 9780140287028
ASIN: 0140287027
Publication Date: April 6, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Book Description
In his eagerly awaited fourth novel, New York Times-bestselling writer Nick Hornby is at his finest-hilarious, provocative, and moving-as he mines the hearts and psyches of three neurotic Londoners and one neurotic American who meet each other at the end of the line.
Unabridged CD - 8 CDs, 9 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 219 more reviews...
 Good read. July 28, 2008
Life affirming in a way you wouldn't expect a book about 4 down-on-their-luck characters would be. The characters themselves are fully fleshed out by Hornby, who is a great writer with a terrific ear for dialogue. It's all very English and hilarious in a way only the english can be.
 Classic Hornby -- brilliantly funny July 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Another New Year's Eve, another party...another group of four people who meet unexpectedly on the rooftop of a building they've all trekked out to so they can kill themselves.
I read the back-cover synopsis and went "What?!" out loud in the bookstore. (Though I don't recommend doing this, as people stare.) This could have been such a grisly novel, but not with Hornby. I devoured this book and loved every page. He tells the story, through four different perspectives, of an unlikely group of misfits who are desperate and unhappy with their lives, and meet each other on a rooftop. They've each come here for suicide, but they end up with so much more than they had planned on. It's darkly comic, without feeling dark. It's imaginative and creative, without exploiting the characters for the sake of an extra laugh. Hornby takes gruesome subject matter and, in his inimitable style, treats it with humanity, compassion, and humour. His characters are so real, and I laughed out loud many (many!) times. You relate with each on some level.
This is a great read, and classic Hornby. He's a master of fiction -- truly good, truly funny fiction -- and with this novel, he will not leave you disappointed.
 Kill Yourself June 16, 2008
I thought this would be a book about hope and living life to its fullest. Obviously the author has never been suicidal since a "topper" would not find validation in life the way these characters do. I read the whole book, expecting someone to die. The character, Jess, is a teenaged cliche and I ended up skipping over her chapters. Basically, these characters have no reason to live, not in the beginning nor the end of the story. Their circumstances aren't altered in any way. They have no joy. Friends. Family. Hope. Its a book about nothing but setting appointments an deadlines.
Funny and an all around good book May 30, 2008
This book was an interesting subject since it took such a dark subject and made it amusing. It's true to life in many parts, and makes a lot of good points about life in general. This book is more about life and screweing it up than suicide, and is quite enjoyable.
Doomed by ridiculous premise, unlikeable characters. May 29, 2008
Built on the utterly ridiculous premise that four people have chosen to leap from the same building on New Year's Eve, Hornby faces some pretty tough odds from the get-go. He fails. True, he doesn't back away from the sad but true fact that depressed people are not a lot of fun to be around, and presents them to us in all their self-absorbed, angry glory, but this accuracy dooms the novel. I made it to page 1000 before I started wishing all four would jump off the damn thing holding hands.
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