book data
91 ratings,
3.85
average rating, 19 reviews
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published
2005
by EKSMO Publishers
(first published 1987)
details
Hardcover, 224 pages
setting
United Kingdom
isbn
569913137X
description
Над Брикстоном солнце. Профессор, притворяясь дорожным рабочим, сверлит мостовую …more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 183)
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5 stars (4)
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4 stars (6)
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3 stars (7)
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2 stars (0)
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1 star (0)
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avg 3.85
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in March, 2008
Alby is a punk in London who has been very sick. When he went to the doctor, the doctor told him the problem was nerves and gave him sedatives, even though he was vomiting and bleeding randomly. He thought he would die, until a friend suggested adding food slowly into his diet to see if he was allergic to anything. He improved until he drank milk. When other people heard his story, they did elimination diets and found they were allergic to milk. Soon, Alby found himself at the center of a ...more
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Read in May, 2009
Woody Allen meets Pulp Fiction. Alby, a punk and minor drug dealer in his mid-20s, is very sick and discovers the cause of it to be milk. After being featured in a newspaper article, Alby becomes an inadvertent campaigner against milk.
When milk sales drop, the Milk Marketing Board wants to put an end to him. He'd go on the run, but he can't quite bring himself to leave his extensive comic collection behind.
The chapters are divided into short scenes which depict the inte...more
When milk sales drop, the Milk Marketing Board wants to put an end to him. He'd go on the run, but he can't quite bring himself to leave his extensive comic collection behind.
The chapters are divided into short scenes which depict the inte...more
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An exercise in the unreliable narrator becomes a sort of quick-cut magical realist comic book about a speed dealing slacker paranoiac. Does that make sense? No? Well, it mirrors the book. But in a good way. This is like reading bar notes on napkins. It has a great offhanded way about it that also makes it feel pretty thin in parts. And repetitive. But I enjoyed it. It's the ultimate attention deficit novelette. Beware the Milk Council. And the Brazilian hit woman. And Ethelbert The Unready's mag...more
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recommended to oriana by:
Powell's.com
from the Powell's review:
Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation reads like a kind of ur- Trainspotting that was possible while the shadow of the Sex Pistols was still fresh. There is no phony nihilism and no political posturing, just the celebration of fleeting opportunities for happiness in the squalor of punk bohemia.
hell yeah!!
Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation reads like a kind of ur- Trainspotting that was possible while the shadow of the Sex Pistols was still fresh. There is no phony nihilism and no political posturing, just the celebration of fleeting opportunities for happiness in the squalor of punk bohemia.
hell yeah!!
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6 comments
Read in August, 2009
I enjoyed the book modestly, but there seemed to me to be too much of the college essayist on Dexedrine, hammering the keyboard with his sunglasses on against the glare of a small desk lamp at 3:00 a.m. There could be a graphic novel version of this story, as it is cartoonish in nature.
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Martin Millar writes like Kurt Vonnegut, if Vonnegut had read more classical Greek comedies and watched a ton of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which is to say, while the tone and simplicity of the writing style is very similar, but the tone is less "we are all destined for doom and only civility can make it somewhat less unpleasant" and more "I am destined for doom... ooh, Buffy is on."
Anyway... this is the first of Millar's books that I read. I picked it up during a...more
Anyway... this is the first of Millar's books that I read. I picked it up during a...more
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Read in January, 2010
As Martin Millar wrote a number of my favorite reads last year. I decided to have this be my first book of 2010. Not quite as clever as The Good Fairies or Lonely Werewolf Girl, but an enjoyable distraction
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Great fun! A story-story that doesn't waste time with over-complicated psychology of characters and just keeps the action going putting them in harms way. Quite humorous.
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Crazy fun. Drug dealing comicbook collector on the run from a Brazillian hitwoman and a pair of Chinese videogame addicts, while a college professor secretly searches the streets of Brixton for the mythic crown of Ethelred the Unready.
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Read in February, 2010
A silly, fast read and lots of fun. The kind of book Kurt Vonnegut might have written in one of his lighter moods, if he'd been a British punk.
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Read in September, 2009
I didn't think I was going to care about Alby, then right around the part where he explains what's really going on with the Milk Marketing Board it all just kind of clicked. I think I have a new favorite author!
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Read in December, 2009
I'd forgotten how completely hatstand this book is in places. It fairly crackles along though, with an interesting narrative technique leading you along the way.
Bizarre conspiracy theories clash with wonderfully drawn characters and big doses of black humour to provide a rollercoaster tale of chance and whimsy.
Some of Alby's observations would cause any reader to nod along in agreement. Despite some obvious defects, he's such a warm character that you can't help but be dr...more
Bizarre conspiracy theories clash with wonderfully drawn characters and big doses of black humour to provide a rollercoaster tale of chance and whimsy.
Some of Alby's observations would cause any reader to nod along in agreement. Despite some obvious defects, he's such a warm character that you can't help but be dr...more
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Read in July, 2009
Completely bizarre and frenetic. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Read in October, 2009
There is a tone in almost all Martin Millar books that I just love. This book seems like it shouldn't work but completely does. I felt like the way it switched between 1st and 3rd person. It was clear and not-at-all gimmicky. There are ideas that are fleshed out a bit more in the brilliant Lonely Werewolf Girl but they work in this story as well.
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Read in September, 2009
A hectic read, with a breakneck staccato pace, but rewarding characters - utterly creative and an enjoyable.
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