Michael Frayn's 1967 Fleet Street novel draws unavoidable comparison with Evelyn Waugh's "Scoop", and that it comes off looking pretty good speaks volumes for Frayn's talent. It tells the story of John Dyson, a middling newspaper man slipping towards the end of his youth and towards the end of his foundering career. It also parallels the end of British print media in its traditional form as it gradually gave way to Americanization, i.e. the unavoidable slip towards television. But Frayn's portrait is a fair one: he isn't suggesting the lager-soaked world of British print was any better than what replaced it. He exploits the humorous potential of both. His dramatization of British class-based social anxiety and the irritating bullishness of American upstarts are both spot-on. Frayn's introduction to this edition interestingly explains the origins of the novel and the actual people and experiences on which it is based.

I was waffling on reading this one but a friend gave me the final nudge I needed and I'm awfully glad he did. This book moves from comic novel to theatrical farce so smoothly you can practically see it on stage as you read. Farce is ridiculously hard to do and Frayn is very, very good at it. In fact, his play "Noises Off" is a farce about a farce and is one of the funniest productions I've ever seen.

Philosopher turned amateur art-historian Martin Clay and his art historian wife Kate take an extended stay in the country, mostly for Martin to finish his book on "the impact of Nominalism on Netherlandish art of the 15th century." They happen upon their neighbors -- Tony Churt and his wife Laura, owners of a dilapidated manor (and wonderfully vivid supporting characters) --and get invited to dinner where they are asked to assess the value of several paintings in the family estate. Among these paintings, Martin believes, is a lost masterpiece by Flemish artist Peter Bruegel. He doesn't say a word to the Churts about this "discovery"; instead, he sets out to prove its authenticity and immediately begins plans on staging an elaborate art theft.

The progression of plot depends very heavily on art history but because its told through the spinning wheels of Martin's over-active mind, it's very entertaining stuff, and you don't feel as if you've walked into an art-history text book (well, okay, there are moments when you do, but I found it all rather interesting). Martin is beautifully comical in his earnestness and completely believable at that. Very British too, which adds to his appeal.

The story comes to a frenzied head near the end, as farces generally do, and goes out with a bang. Fun stuff.

"Headlong" is a very entertaining sort of novel that revolves around a wonderful plot device: a man finds, in his boorish neighbor's house, a neglected painting be believes may be a lost Bruegel. The rest of the novel revolves around his plot to confirm the painting's identity and to steal it from the undeserving neighbor. Frayn does a remarkably good job of showing how protagonist Clay, while neglecting his own philosophical scholarship, engages in his quest to confirm the painting's authenticity, and the history and art history are mixed in fast and furiously. The novel becomes one of those intellectual mysteries in which the clues are scholarly details, and this material is handled remarkably well, and I learned a great deal about Dutch political and aesthetic history. This aspect of the story, however, is hung on a less effectively executed plot to free the painting from its undeserving owner. If the book drags at times it is not because it gets bogged down in history, it is because it doesn't bog itself down sufficiently in the present. I would have liked to have seen the characters fleshed out a bit more, motives made clearer, and the emotional investments of the characters made more real. Ultimately, however, "Headlong" is an effective and engaging read.

Philosopher Martin Clay is asked by a neighbor to appraise a few paintings; he's unimpressed with all but one, a pastoral scene that he believes to be a long-lost Bruegel. But instead of leveling with his neighbor, Martin decides to keep mum and buy the painting himself. Is Martin truly motivated by a desire to see a great work of art returned to a museum so that the world can enjoy it, or is it simply greed? Can a nerdy academic successfully scam his more worldly neighbor -- and convince his own wife that it's worth doing? Is the painting truly the Dutch masterpiece that Martin believes (or wants to believe) it is? Will Martin's marriage and family survive his obsession with the purported Bruegel? Frayn keeps the reader guessing, mixing art history lessons about the Dutch masters with Martin's bumbling attempts to pull a sting, deftly portraying the unintended disruption to Martin's family life and marriage that inevitably follows. The book is perhaps a little too didactic when it comes to Martin's art history research, and this is why I found the beginning of the book slow going -- it is densely packed with names and dates, references to obscure artists and intellectuals as well as more well-known ones, and in-depth analysis of various Dutch paintings. But it's worth persevering as the novel builds up steam until its hilarious and supremely fitting denouement.

I loved the play Copenhagen - saw it four times, and it re-sparked my interest in physics, which I read about as a hobby. I know, weird, but whatever, I'm a smart chick.

Anyway, this book isn't about the play at all, really, it's about an exchange of letters between the author and one of the actors in the London production of Copenhagen. And it's well-crafted, I think anyone who enjoys a good mystery, and a bit of the backstage goings-on would enjoy the book. It certainly captivated me and both Michael Frayn and David Burke write well and with a good deal of dry British humor.

This is a marvellous entertainment - I'm not sure whether I should correctly describe it as either a memoir or novelette - which explores the nature of reality. It's not really a sequel to Michael Frayn's splendid play "Copenhagen", but does delve into some of the same terrain as the play. Instead, it is a witty exchange of thoughts and letters sent between Michael Frayn and actor David Burke (He portrayed physicist Niels Bohr during the play's original London production) about a set of manuscripts which allegedly date from the internment of German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his colleagues at Farm Hall immediately after the end of World War II. What follows is a terse, spellbinding mystery which is well told by both writers, replete with ample doses of English humor.

I thought COPENHAGEN was a great play, and I picked up this
book thinking it was background for the play (the bookjacket
gives some hints that that isn't the case, but I didn't bother
to read that. Anyway, it turns out to be less than that, and
also much more. I was sucked into the mystery along with
Michael Frayn, and read it in one sitting (it's short). I
highly recommend it for pure entertainment.

I was disappointed in Microsoft Reader's inability to print. I like the concept of near instant availability for e-books, but prefer to read from the printed page instead of staring at a computer screen. Funny, too, how I found out I couldn't print my document until after I had purchased this e-book and installed the Microsoft Reader software (with the additional step of having to "activate" a pc for it). In fact, Microsoft Reader's Help section doesn't make mention of the fact that one can't print its documents. A search in the help topics only produces the result that the word "print" can't be found.

I'll avoid the Microsoft Reader e-book format in the future.

Really Really boring, don't think anyone should waste their time reading this garbage. Horrible!

I have read many versions of Uncle Vanya, but this edition is an up-beat, funny, and, ultimately wonderful version of the excellent story by one of Russias beloved writers. I was looking for the right edition to use in my school for the school play, and this edition the kids could connect to. It dosen't have a lot of that Shakespere mumbo-jumbo that you have to read 50 times. This is accesible and very good. rock on David Mamet.