Broken into four parts, each consisting of tens of chapters, the writing comes in short, poetic bursts. 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.

Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit. 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 . The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Praise for Second Best: ‘A witty and heartfelt portrait of what happens when luck does not go your way. 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.So much space on the page visually transforms each paragraph into a stanza, while lending the words a solemn weight and power . 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. 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.

Decisive coincidences abound, as when a death in the family of Martin’s babysitter results in his fateful audition. 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 . 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. 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.

be ‘An inventive novel about rebuilding after failure, no matter how powerful or vast it may be’ actualitte. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. 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 . Imbuing this slim novel with its gentle, melancholic beauty is a sense of the grandness of small things.

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.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.

Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. 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. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit.Its sentences are wise, humorous, incisive, and simple; they add up to an engrossing reading experience. 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. An elegant, irresistibly farcical comic mystery based around a library of rejected manuscripts, Foenkinos' playful satire is the perfect feelgood read. 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 . Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here.