The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Imbuing this slim novel with its gentle, melancholic beauty is a sense of the grandness of small things. It also shows, more generally, what happens when a society is subject to the endless Instagram audition, the tyranny of the sight of other people’s happiness . a serious author who doesn’t take himself seriously’ L’Express ‘Abounds with Gallic wit and charm’ Waterstones Megan Jones is an in-house translator for Gallic Books and lives in London.

Broken into four parts, each consisting of tens of chapters, the writing comes in short, poetic bursts. A magical imagining of the fate of a fictional boy whose life is shaped forever when he loses out on the role of Harry Potter. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.

Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall). His father dies; his mother leaves him alone with sadistic boyfriends who lock him in his room; a date is aborted when Martin sees The Chamber of Secrets on Mathilde’s bookshelf and has a panic attack. A genealogy of the haphazard decisions and coincidences that align to create a life, Second Best is a bittersweet novel exploring what it means to live through failure. a playful blend of fact and fiction’ The Telegraph ‘Foenkinos’s surreal yet relatable novel, a French bestseller, considers life in our age of anxiety, when other people’s picture-perfect lives make our own seem drab in comparison’ Washington Post, 10 Noteworthy Books for September ‘It’s about time British readers discovered the wit and originality of David Foenkinos, and this exquisitely bittersweet comedy of life’s missed opportunities is the perfect place to start’ Jonathan Coe, author of Bournville ‘It doesn’t get more captivating than this’ Elle ‘Funny and melancholy, cruel and dramatic’ Le Figaro Littéraire ‘David Foenkinos turns a genius idea into an absorbing novel’ La Croix ‘A sensitive and kind meditation on coming back from failure’ Le Parisien ‘A lively, sharp, playful tale’ L’Obs ‘Peppered with empathy, emotion and humour’ rtbf.

com Praise for David Foenkinos: ‘Light, funny and erudite: a delight’ The Guardian ‘Charming, clever’ The Independent ‘A completely delightful jeu d’esprit’ Daily Mail ‘Unputdownable . Foenkinos’s smash-hit Second Best is a playful, poignant story about fate, loss and how the lives we wish we’d led might not be all they’re cracked up to be . Every line has something profound to say about love and loss, hope and fear, time and memory, and the enduring power of art' Andrew Michael Hurley, author of The Loney. The ten-year-old boy who wasn’t cast as Harry Potter faces a lifetime of anxiety and doubt in David Foenkinos’s poignant novel Second Best.Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here. Foenkinos’ smash-hit Second Best is a playful, poignant story about fate, loss and how the lives we wish we’d led might not be all they’re cracked up to be . Haunted by an overwhelming sense of having ruined his life, Martin withdraws from the cruel Harry Potter-saturated world, only to find it invading his most intimate moments. The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit.

Foenkinos’s] sensitive and empathetic handling of the theme of the also-ran is as instructive as it is entertaining’ Irish Times ‘A brilliant concept for a novel’ Sunday Times ‘Foenkinos has had a gem of an idea .

Decisive coincidences abound, as when a death in the family of Martin’s babysitter results in his fateful audition. Embroidering the edges of Martin’s story are dozens of other tangential narratives, ranging from the story of how his parents first met to coverage of the path that J. be ‘An inventive novel about rebuilding after failure, no matter how powerful or vast it may be’ actualitte. An elegant, irresistibly farcical comic mystery based around a library of rejected manuscripts, Foenkinos' playful satire is the perfect feelgood read. Its sentences are wise, humorous, incisive, and simple; they add up to an engrossing reading experience.

Stumbling from therapists and psychological hospitals to remarkable success as a student and a Louvre attendant, Martin grows up blinded by the life he isn’t living. Praise for Second Best: ‘A witty and heartfelt portrait of what happens when luck does not go your way. So much space on the page visually transforms each paragraph into a stanza, while lending the words a solemn weight and power . Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit.