Used book – Bienvenue au club, Jonathan Coe, Jamila et Serge Chauvin

Imagine! England in the 1970s, so picturesque, so distant, with its thriving unions and hippie fashion. A wholesome image cracked by unseen threats: social tensions, the rise of the far right, and a war in Northern Ireland that dared not speak its name. But in those years, when the country would shift from the welfare state to Thatcherism and from psychedelic music to punk, Benjamin, Philip, Doug, and their friends had plenty of other things on their minds: fitting in with the cliques and clubs of an archaic high school, daring to talk to girls, asserting themselves as budding artists, escaping sleepy Birmingham for London adventures... Too innocent to grasp the issues and intrigues that preoccupied their parents. Until the world caught up with them. In this rich novel, which will have a sequel, Jonathan Coe returns to the vein of "What a Carve Up!", using every style, masterfully intertwining narratives and characters, expertly pulling all the threads of fate, to offer us at once a tender and funny adolescent chronicle, a nostalgic coming-of-age novel, and a broad, serious, and lucid portrayal of a country in full transformation.