Geoff Nicholson at the Complete Review

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Geoff Nicholson
at the complete review:

Name: Geoff NICHOLSON

Nationality: Great Britain

Born: 4 March 1953

Graduated from Cambridge and the University of Essex
Currently divides his time between London and Los Angeles

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Bibliography

Highlighted titles are under review at the complete review

Street Sleeper - novel, 1987
The Knot Garden - novel, 1989
What we did on our Holidays - novel, 1990
Big Noises - non-fiction, 1991
Hunters and Gatherers - novel, 1991
The Food Chain - novel, 1992
The Errol Flynn Novel - novel, 1993
Day Trips to the Desert - travel, 1993
Still Life with Volkswagens - novel, 1994
Everything and More - novel, 1994
Footsucker - novel, 1995
Bleeding London - novel, 1997
Flesh Guitar - novel, 1998
Female Ruins - novel, 1999
Bedlam Burning - novel, 2000
The Hollywood Dodo - novel, 2004
Sex Collectors - non-fiction, 2006
The Lost Art of Walking - non-fiction, 2008
Gravity's Volkswagen - novel, 2009
Walking in Ruins - non-fiction, 2013
The City under the Skin - novel, 2014
The London Complaint - non-fiction, 2016
The Miranda - novel, 2017

Please note that this bibliography is not necessarily complete.

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Quotes

What others have to
say about Geoff Nicholson:

"British writer Geoff Nicholson's quirky titles (Still Life with Volkswagens, Footsucker) promise black humor and unconventional sex. And they deliver, to the hilt." - Carey Harrison, San Francisco Chronicle (28/12/1997)

"Nicholson's obsessive obsessiveness -- see: Footsucker, Still Life With Volkswagens, etc. -- is both his strength and his weakness. His quirky diatribes on the horrors of modern life can be a bit too cynical, and some characters receive shorter shrift than they deserve." - Jay A. Fernandez, The Washington Post (4/1/1998)

"Nicholson’s novels are distinguished by their quirky, daring imagination." - Christopher Hart, Sunday Telegraph (1/5/1999)

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Pros and Cons
of the author's work:

Pros:

The novels are always fun, with a dark humour that (almost) never gets too black.
The ideas in his books are always clever, intriguingly tied together.
The novels are stylistically very solid, relatively short and fast-paced, and easy and fun to read.
Strong female characters

Cons:

Nicholson's obsession with obsessions: he fixates on one idea, big or small, and takes it to all extremes. He does it well, but it can be a bit much.
The novels tend to follow too many disparate storylines or tell too many small stories. These generally do converge, or at least cross, but it can be annoying.

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the complete review's Opinion

     Geoff Nicholson is one of the finest contemporary writers of pure entertainments. There is meaning, message, and depth to his writings, but Nicholson artfully conveys these inside his intricate novelistic creations.
     An imaginative writer, he comes up with more than his fill of off-beat and curious ideas. His books are always amusing, but the humour is rarely forced. His main characters are almost always very human, and as odd and unlikely as they may be the reader invariably takes an interest in them.
     The all-pervasive quirkiness may, at first glance, be off-putting, but it should not be. Rarely does Nicholson go over the top, as so many authors do. Indeed, most of his books are marked by the characters (and the story) eventually coming back down to earth, as it were. Nicholson enjoys eccentricity, but does not indulge in it for its own sake alone.
     With fifteen novels and four works of non-fiction under his belt to date (2009), written in the span of just over two decades, Nicholson has produced a remarkably strong and consistent yet varied oeuvre. He continues to surprise -- and he continues to entertain -- and with this growing body of work he should continue to ascend among the ranks of Britain's foremost authors. His marvelous literary divertissements deserve both greater popularity and recognition.

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Links

Geoff Nicholson:

Geoff Nicholson's Website
Psycho-Gourmet blog
Interview at Bookreporter.com
Geoff Nicholson's books at the complete review:

Bedlam Burning (A-)
Big Noises (A-)
Bleeding London (A)
The City under the Skin (B+)
The Errol Flynn Novel (B-)
Everything and More (A-)
Female Ruins (B)
Flesh Guitar (B-)
The Food Chain (B)
Footsucker (A-)
Gravity's Volkswagen (B)
The Hollywood Dodo (B+)
Hunters and Gatherers (A-)
The Knot Garden (B+)
The Lost Art of Walking (B)
The Miranda (B)
Sex Collectors (B)
Still Life with Volkswagens (B+)
Street Sleeper (B)
What we did on our Holidays (A-)
See also:

The similarly dark and funny works of B.S.Johnson
Index of other Author Pages at the complete review
Index of Contemporary British fiction at the complete review

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