Everything and More [Paperback]

Geoff Nicholson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999

A humorous "shopping and terrorism" novel by the author of "Street Sleeper", "What We Did On Our Holidays", "Hunters and Gatherers", and "Footsucker".

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An off-beat tale with a sardonic edge, Nicholson's brightly lit black comedy takes place in Haden Brothers, a monstrous London department store that is a combination of Harrod's, Kafka's Castle and the Marx Brothers' The Big Store. Arnold Haden, the last surviving Haden brother, has a weakness for nubile shop assistants and, as the novel opens, believes that the brittlely efficient Vita Carlisle, who has been avoiding his attentions, has finally succumbed when she agrees to come to his penthouse apartment (located atop the giant store). But when Arnold finally gets a peek under Vita's skirts, he finds "three sticks of dynamite... and a tangle of electrical wiring that leads to a switch located by her navel." Vita threatens to blow up the store-and she won't, initially, tell Arnold why. So begins a highly literate and bawdy assault on the principle that all things, including people, have exchange values. The book's spirit is epitomized by the third major character, Charlie Mayhew, a lowly furniture porter and failing artist, who not only longs for Vita but also admits, in an early monologue: "So I thought to myself, why not structure a book like a department store?" Arnold, Vita and Charlie proceed to undergo reversals of fortune as though stuck in a revolving door of a plot. Along the way, disquisitions on makeup application, kleptomania and bomb-threat etiquette stock an episodic narrative that makes stops in chapters named after store sections and saddled with double entendres: Yarns, Bedding, First Aid; Toiletries, Accessories, Exhibitions. As, individually, the three main characters discover the great dark secrets of the department store (and they are over-the-top dark), Nicholson (Hunters and Gatherers) maintains enough verbal resourcefulness to rescue his story from its occasional predictability, delivering an exhaustively entertaining farce and one of the better satires of Thatcherite consumerism.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Consumption and sex are among the witty Nicholson's enduring preoccupations: The Food Chain (1993) poked fun at culinary and sexual excess; Hunters and Gatherers took on collectors' obsessiveness; lust and gluttony are major motifs here as well. The title is the motto of "London's, and probably the world's most prestigious and most expensive department store," Haden Brothers, a nine-story behemoth modeled on Brueghel's painting of the Tower of Babel. The narrative tours this paradise along two tracks: one traces a confrontation in the store's penthouse between the sole remaining Haden brother--misanthropic, randy Arnold--and Vita Carlisle, a young store employee who's come to their tryst wearing three sticks of dynamite; the other offers flashbacks of the months since the store hired Carlisle and a hapless college-educated furniture porter named Charlie Mayhew. Nicholson's minor characters--slimy personnel manager Derek Snell, paramilitary security chief Ray Chalmers, Anton Heath, the anarchist-wanna-be foreman of the work-averse porters, and Vita's kleptomaniac mother, who worked for the store herself years ago--are small Dickensian gems, and Nicolson's clockwork emporium provides a vivid setting for this very British yet universal comedy of modern manners and morals. Mary Carroll --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 249 pages
• Publisher: Overlook TP (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879517107
• ISBN-13: 978-0879517106
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,331,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Back in print in the U.S. ...and worth the wait!, July 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Everything and More (Paperback)

One of Nicholson's best books (second only--maybe--to Bleeding London), Everything and More is also one of his most accessible. If you've read Hunters and Gatherers, The Food Chain, or any of his other novels, you know that he's a pretty tough author to categorize. His books--while focusing on eccentric, offbeat characters and situations you rarely (if you're lucky) encounter in real life--manage to convey a universal sense of what it means to be obsessed with...well, anything. If you haven't read any of Geoff Nicholson's books before, this is a great place to start.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More and More, January 26, 2000

By 

Michelle K. Rogers (Land Downunder) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Everything and More (Paperback)

Its been a while since I've read it, but I just had to review it because it was so unlike just about anything I've ever read. It was so original - such a breath of fresh air! Everything kind of transpired like a bizarre dream, and it was quite suspenseful. You couldn't help but like and sometimes pity the main character. It was interesting how he actually lived in the shopping centre, yet distanced himself from the obsession with consuming. I love a book with intriguing characters, and this one had plenty of them. It was basically cool.

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything and More by Geoff Nicholson, January 14, 2010

By 

Seedpod9 (MD) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Everything and More (Paperback)

One of my favorite books and one which had me thirsting to read more writings by Geoff Nicholson. A book for people who like quirkiness and have a sense of humor. I don't give many books as gifts but this one I have given to several of my friends. I am not sure they enjoyed it as much as I did but something different from the norm. I find he writes well and weaves an interesting tale. Still Life with Volkswagens, the Food Chain, Footsucker, Hunters and Gatherers were other books of his that I enjoyed. His more recent ones, not as much.