Sorrow and Bliss: A BBC Two Between the Covers pick

Product Description The instant Sunday Times top five bestseller: the book you have to read this summer'Just read it. It's unforgettable'India Knight, The Sunday Times'The most wonderful, heartbreakingly gorgeous novel of the year'Elizabeth Day'It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud... Extraordinary'Guardian'Summer's must-read novel'Stylist'A raucously funny, beautifully written, emotion-bashing book'The Times'Universally proclaimed the book of the summer'Evening Standard'Set to become one of the hits of the year'Financial Times 'I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realised that I wanted to send it to everyone I know'Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House'A masterclass on family, damage and the bonds of love'Jessie Burton, author of The Confession'Patrick Melrose meets Fleabag. Brilliant'Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick. A gift, her mother once said, not everybody gets.So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of 40 - friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave?Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her. Something that broke when a little bomb went off in her brain, at 17, and left her changed in a way that no doctor or therapist has ever been able to explain.Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix - or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself.THE BOOK OF THE SUMMER One of The Times 'Best books for summer'One of the Guardian's '50 hottest new books everyone should read this summer'One of the Independent's '30 best books for summer'One of the Irish Independent's '50 hottest summer reads''Witty and affecting' David Nicholls, Guardian's summer reading'If there were any prospect of stuffing a suitcase with books this summer for hours reading beside a pool somewhere, I'd advise you to make room for this' Sara Collins, Guardian's summer reading Review This richly spiced novel is a pleasure from the first page to the last... Its beautifully understated, airy style conceals the fiercest intelligence. I loved it so much that I stalked the author on social media - a first. Just read it. It's unforgettable. -- India Knight ― SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE The most wonderful, heartbreakingly gorgeous novel of the year. -- Elizabeth Day ― THE MAIL ON SUNDAY, YOU MAGAZINE It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud... Mason pulls off something extraordinary in this huge-hearted novel, alchemising an unbearable anguish into something tender and hilarious and redemptive and wise, without ever undermining its gravity or diminishing its pain. -- Clare Clark ― GUARDIAN Inspired storytelling... a devastating and sharply funny love story... it is Martha's voice itself - her woeful deadpan narration always teetering between the comic, the tragic and the downright unlikable - that makes this novel sing. -- Julie Myerson ― OBSERVER Probably the best book you'll read this year... Brilliant, bleak, hilarious: the book of the summer. -- Natasha Poliszczuk ― THE MAIL ON SUNDAY Sorrow and Bliss, Meg Mason's first novel to be published in the UK, is as wonderful as everyone says it is. Blunt, tender, hilarious, and so very good on the trickiness of families, it is that rare perfect balance of fun (commercial) and difficult (literary), and exactly the book to read right now, when you need a laugh, but want to cry. -- Eva Wiseman ― THE OBSE