books

Boris Johnson’s first novel: Seventy Two Virgins

5 Comments

Boris Johnson’s new novel was launched at The Travellers Club last night. Rt Hon Michael Howard MP attended as did many members of Boris’s family and members of the media.

The Guardian review has some details, a lot of background and a few opinions that we don’t necessarily agree with here.

5 thoughts on “Boris Johnson’s first novel: Seventy Two Virgins”

  1. This is all very well, but where’s the hyphen? I even lost sleep on the train this morning, thinking about your hyphen. Admittedly I only lost five minutes, but nevertheless, this lack of hyphen stole a whole five minutes of my sleep.

    I feel bereft now. Less sleep, AND no hyphen.

  3. It’s very funny, and very well written. I kept seeing stuff about how this reminds of Wodehouse. (There is a direct reference – viz, the Eulalie underwear.) Hmm … in some ways I’d say it’s better. A lot of Wodehouse’s appeal is snob appeal. But Boris covers a far wider social canvas and makes an admirable attempt to enter the consciousness of many very different people. There are serious themes here, too – Wodehouse steers clear of those, and his world is nothing if not artificial.

    I think Boris has a problem here. How can anyone write stuff like this and still pretend to be a bumbler?

  4. I loved 72 Virgins, and was especially delighted to see that the testimonial on the back cover was attributed only to The Telegraph – it gave me such a frisson of delight to ponder whether the author had simply written the testimonial in his own column and then guilelessly reprinted it on the back of his book. It was the fact that it was trumpeted as an *effortless* page-turner that especially roused my suspicions, for who but the author could possibly know with such certainty what efforts went into it?

    All wild and baseless accusations of auto-appraisal aside though…it is a lovely, thoughtful and intriguing book quite thoroughly crammed with just the sort of heartwarmingly barking whimsy I was hoping for when I bought it.

  5. posted Monday 30th Aug at www. ipicture.it

    Boris Johnson has a new book out….
    How can Boris keep up this pace, family man, politician, mobile phone trick cyclist, and some time presenter of have “I got news for you”, now a new novel with Seventy  two Virgins. As one of his article proclaimed in GQ.
    Vote for me, and your girlfriends or wife will have bigger breasts. Vote Boris

    Mike

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