Bedlam Burning

by Geoff Nicholson

Book Overview

It all starts at Cambridge University, in the rooms of Dr. John Bentley, a don famous for his book burning parties-"a little, active symbolic literary criticism"-where guests are invited to incinerate books. It is at one such party that Gregory Collins, brilliant but unprepossessing, meets Mike Smith, a handsome classmate. When Collins's first novel, The Wax Man, is accepted for publication, he convinces Smith to take his place on the book jacket...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1585672394
• ISBN13: 9781585672394
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Length: 298 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Entertaining, funny, clever

This is a very, very funny book. The other reviews were pretty accurate, the one thing I will add is there is quite a bit of British humor...non-Brits might not get all the jokes! But don't let this put you off, the book is very amusing and has a couple of clever plot twists too.

Witty and Clever

Geoff Nicholson's Bedlam Burning is a cleverly-told story about, Michael Smith, an attractive 23 year-old British man, who allows a less-better looking acquaintance of his from University (they met at a book burning party), Gregory Collins, use his photo on the book jacket of Gregory's first novel. Michael, masquerading as Gregory at a book reading, is offered a position in a psychiatric clinic as a writer-in-residence, part of the therapy for those being treated there. Bedlam Burning is also a witty examination of what it is to read, what it is to write, who, and how much, we can believe. Michael almost immediately begins getting submissions from everyone at the clinic. As he ruminates on these submissions, you may wonder, who is really writing these? Can you believe it at all? Gregory keeps coming back into Michael's life, complicating things, but allowing Nicholson to give us more ruminations on the nature of writing, authorship and reading. The novel is engaging, humorous and witty. The characters are just that--characters. The story moves along fairly quickly and it works. An enjoyable read.