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A Week in December

3.15 of 5 stars 3.15 · rating details · 3,089 ratings · 514 reviews

A powerful contemporary novel set in London from a master of literary fiction.

London, the week before Christmas, 2007. Over seven days we follow the lives of seven major characters: a hedge fund manager trying to bring off the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate;...more

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published October 4th 2009 by Hutchinson (first published 2009)

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Jul 09, 2010 Ian Mapp rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think this may well have been the first Faulks novel set in modern day that I have read - having gone through the wars, victorian mental health and the 1970s - we now have a state of the nation book.

And what a clever book it is. A the title suggests, spread over 1 week, this details the lives of a number of london residents - the tube driver who has been involved in a suicide, the banker who is trying to manipulate the markets for his own good, the suicide bomber, the barrister, the pickle mak...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Will rated it 2 of 5 stars

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but for Faulks it is more like 3 to 10 thousand. Some authors let a few words or a phrase fill in the scene in your imagination, but not Faulks: his scenes are more like a Hieronymus Bosch or Where’s Waldo ... everything is there in excruciating detail, not just in the present but including all the history that he thinks we need to know to place the 7 short days in context.

We apparently need to know not just the socially-awkward Underground train dr...more They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but for Faulks it is more like 3 to 10 thousand. Some authors let a few words or a phrase fill in the scene in your imagination, but not Faulks: his scenes are more like a Hieronymus Bosch or Where’s Waldo ... everything is there in excruciating detail, not just in the present but including all the history that he thinks we need to know to place the 7 short days in context.

We apparently need to know not just the socially-awkward Underground train driver’s ex-boyfriend’s full name, what he did with her 12 or more years ago, what her brother thought of him (the ex), and why there were no more relationships in her life up till now, but the actual moves she made in the virtual reality game that was her substitute for real life. Or a detailed description of the methods the repulsive financier used to acquire his ill-gotten bloated income along with his full email address and partial contents of his website; not just the name of the invented game-show program that the disaffected Islamist teenager from a secular family watched in his bedroom, but including the actual script from the stupid show. It’s the sort of stuff you really, really want to skip over, but can’t in case you miss some detail that is actually relevant to the developing plot, such as it is.

The lives of all these characters intertwine in a way that should lead to a final climactic blowout ... after all, each is just a stereotype and seems to represent a character in a sort of Morality play that is Faulks’s view of what life in London is like today (or rather, four years ago when the financial crash and bombings were hot). But, not to give anything away, the end is quite an anticlimax, and in fact I was rather expecting a disaster of some sort - shouldn't they have all been crushed under the tube train, or been poisoned at the dinner party, or at the least, exposed for the frauds that Faulks clearly thinks they are?

This is a bit sad really, because Faulks is obviously a widely-read and intelligent person. But ... [memo to authors that sadly will never be read], you do the extensive research on financial transactions, the legal system, Islam, the London Underground, or whatever, to give your novel’s characters and actions more credibility – not to deliver bleedin' lectures on those subjects!

I gave it 2* but Goodreads really needs two levels of dislike: it was barely OK and he could have done much, much better, but it was not truly awful.
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Aug 25, 2011 Ruby Barnes rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book left me wondering why SF had failed to write a great novel and has me running to my bookshelf to compare his French trilogy and Human Traces. About halfway through A Week in December, a peripheral character (Shahla) spoke and her voice sounded like the first real person in the book. The other characters are caricatures as much as the closely named celebrities, corporations, institutions and consumer products mimic reality with schoolboy quirkiness. Couples have conversations with each...more

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Dec 18, 2012 Bettie added it

Shelves: winter-20122013, e-book, abandoned

Another one bites the dust...

NEXT!

AB A Week In December
3* Birdsong
3* Charlotte Grey
4* Engleby
3* The Girl at the Lion D'Or
2* On Green Dolphin Street
3* Devil May Care

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Apr 16, 2012 Jules rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-day-fiction

Being a big reader, I find it hard to admit that this is the first Sebastian Faulks book that I have read. After hearing many positive reviews about his work, I read this book after being persuaded by the back-cover blurb and the intriguing front cover. As it stands, this book explains almost perfectly a week of average, modern life in the capital for a cross-section of pressurised characters. Faulks is a genius as he strips down would-be successful characters (ranging from a hedge-fund manager,...more

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May 20, 2013 Lorenzo is currently reading it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-readings, british

I knew I shouldn't buy this.
But, alas, I did.

What could I have bought instead for 1.50 pounds? Mmmh...let's see
- half iced vanilla latte at the local coffee place;
- 5 litres of still mineral water from the cornershop;
- a big bunch of fair trade bananas;
And so it goes.

I remember how 'A Week in December' was included in a list named 'books you should read about post-financial crisis London' published in The Economist.

The list included 'Other people's money' by Justin Cartwright and 'Capital' by J...more

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May 18, 2013 Poonam rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library

A very long week in December, is what I will comment about the title, considering the book is about 550 pages long. Through seemingly innocuous and some strange characters, Faulks has taken a dig at great many things, covered lot many.

John Veals, a financier propelled only by his desire to test the ability to create money, Tranter, a failed writer and a book reviewer with his largely queerly biased views, Gabriel Northwood, knowledgeable yet unsuccessful barrister, Jenni Forture, the train drive...more

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Feb 23, 2013 Kiera Healy rated it 1 of 5 stars

Perhaps I shouldn't have read this book: I don't think I'm in the target audience. The whole thing has the sneering air of an in-joke, as though it should only have been circulated among Faulks' friends, who would presumably bray with laughter at what strikes me as tedious, poorly-done satire. Reading it feels like watching a bad film comedy with someone who keeps elbowing you in the side to tell you that this is a funny bit.

This novel is set in modern-day London, and follows the lives of a grou...more Perhaps I shouldn't have read this book: I don't think I'm in the target audience. The whole thing has the sneering air of an in-joke, as though it should only have been circulated among Faulks' friends, who would presumably bray with laughter at what strikes me as tedious, poorly-done satire. Reading it feels like watching a bad film comedy with someone who keeps elbowing you in the side to tell you that this is a funny bit.

This novel is set in modern-day London, and follows the lives of a group of loosely connected people from various backgrounds and classes (the latter is a bit of a stretch - there is a Tube driver, but everyone else is extremely wealthy and/or well-educated). I say "loosely connected", but the plot contrives for there to be ludicrous coincidences forcing their lives together over and over. Faulks has invented his own brands and celebrities (or, rather, he has renamed existing brands and celebrities, to humourless effect), but there are only about three of each, so we hear them used in about every chapter - and the effect is always cringemaking. The worst is probably "YourPlace", his social network in which participants "jab" each other. I think I have developed a lifelong tic from twitching every time YourPlace is mentioned. Ugh.

Faulks attempts to cover all the issues of the day in his novel, so we get an unscrupulous hedge fund manager masterminding the financial crisis, a radical young Muslim planning to become a suicide bomber, a Second Life parody, and a reality TV show in which mentally ill contestants share the "Barking Bungalow". There is nothing subtle about this novel, and nothing clever, either. There were times when Faulks all but shone a LAUGH NOW THIS IS A REALLY SARDONIC TAKE ON MODERN LIFE light at me, but the only time I smiled was when I finally finished the book.

Sometimes the numerous coincidences look like they may propel the plot forward: for example, the group of suicide bombers encode a message to each other in an online pornographic image of Olya, a Russian model. We later discover that the financial villain is obsessed with Olya, and looks at her pictures everyday, and then she herself appears as the girlfriend of a painfully-portrayed Polish footballer, who speaks in the least realistic broken English I've seen in a long time (a big peeve of mine, as a language teacher!). We think that Olya cropping up so many times must be leading to something...but of course it isn't, it's just that in Faulks' London there are only twenty-five people, so of course they all interact.

I don't know what's worse, though, the plot or the writing. Oh god, the writing. Every scene in this novel features tedious backstory - and I mean Every. Single. Scene. In the final pages, a marginal character whose point of view we had rarely encountered suddenly started thinking about her irrelevant days as a schoolgirl. "I DON'T CARE! JUST TELL THE FUCKING STORY! HOW ABOUT SOME PLOT?!" I shouted at my kindle, much to the bemusement of my fellow commuters.

In conclusion: this book is terrible. Sadly I only have an electronic copy, so I can't burn it. Mr Faulks, please stick to WWI France. Please.(less)

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Dec 29, 2012 Deb Victoroff rated it 5 of 5 stars

I picked this book up in an airport desperate for a book for a long plane ride. I had no expectations but a lot of hope because it got glowing reviews on its cover - but sometimes those are misleading. But I was riveted from beginning to end. The end is slightly on the abrupt side - it's a surprise which is good, but the loose ends are tied up too quickly - perhaps because I loved the characters so much that I wanted another 100 pages.

There are many characters but I've seldom been introduced to...more I picked this book up in an airport desperate for a book for a long plane ride. I had no expectations but a lot of hope because it got glowing reviews on its cover - but sometimes those are misleading. But I was riveted from beginning to end. The end is slightly on the abrupt side - it's a surprise which is good, but the loose ends are tied up too quickly - perhaps because I loved the characters so much that I wanted another 100 pages.

There are many characters but I've seldom been introduced to so many people in a book that were so well developed with a minimum of description (A drug-addled, video-game obsessed teenager, a greedy hedge fund operator, a fledgling terrorist, a bitter book writer, a subway operator, an institutionalized schizophrenic and his caring brother, a soccer player!), and there is sweet romance, taut suspense, as well as a brilliant (in my mind) description of the recent financial crisis.

The book is described by one reviewer as "Dickensian" - and I love Charles Dickens so I was hopeful and yes, on a certain level I agree. (It is also like the writings of Tom Wolfe - if you liked "Bonfire of the Vanities you will love this). It is similar to Dickens in that each character seems like someone you know, or worked with, or read about, or might know in the future as a human who relates to other humans. But it's very contemporary.

I am in a hurry, otherwise I would wax more eloquent: but I have to say to the author and to potential readers, that this is a wonderful book, beautifully written, one of those books you can't wait to get back to when you put it down and one that you should read with a pen to make notations in the margins ("loved this!") or to underline beautiful descriptions (here's a description of the primal "rating" we do of others: "In Sophie's mind there was a... league...from which people were... promoted. Money... played a part. Next came good looks, notably appearing younger than your age.") It goes on and it's clever and honest and very funny.

Now that I know the name Sebastian Faulk, I will look for his other books with happy anticipation.(less)

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Nov 16, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is Faulks first novel set in the present and boy does it have a lot packed into it. Taking place over the course of a week in December, from Sunday to Saturday, this follows a number of people, all of whom have some relationship to a dinner party being planned for the Saturday.
We have money-obsessed hedge fund manager John Veals, his wife Vanessa, and their son Finbar; Spike Borowski, a Polish footballer recently signed to a local team, and his new girlfriend; Knocker al-Rashid, lime pickle...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Sean O'Reilly rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookcrossing

Several of the individual story lines were quite engaging, in fact I would have liked to have known more about Gabriel and Jenni in particular. Perhaps that would have strayed into Mills and Boon territory and so may not be Faulks' style. I suppose I just have to accept that it is a testament to the quality of the writing that I found sme of the characters genuinely engaging. On the other hand I found much of the John Veals story line confusing and, frankly, boring; and I thought I had a reasona...more

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Sep 17, 2012 Steve lovell rated it 3 of 5 stars

She caught my attention as I flicked the page over in my broadsheet earlier this week. In a floral outfit, she was smiling out at me with sunshine in her eyes. Already she had made something of herself, being a skateboard queen of some renown, and was doing her bit, in a war torn country, by educating others in her passion. She wore the accoutrements of her discipline – newish helmet, knee and elbow pads. As well, she was entrepreneurial, selling scarves to passers by outside a military camp in...more
She caught my attention as I flicked the page over in my broadsheet earlier this week. In a floral outfit, she was smiling out at me with sunshine in her eyes. Already she had made something of herself, being a skateboard queen of some renown, and was doing her bit, in a war torn country, by educating others in her passion. She wore the accoutrements of her discipline – newish helmet, knee and elbow pads. As well, she was entrepreneurial, selling scarves to passers by outside a military camp in her home town. This vibrant, go-getting young lady was only fourteen, was Afghani and has now had her youthfully exuberant and shining life force removed. Her name was Khorshid. I pondered on her for the rest of the day, and have thought of the waste of it all many times since. And how did she meet her end? At the hands of another fourteen year old kid, a suicide bomber. Evil men, religious hard-liners had somehow convinced a lad to walk up to a group of children, press a secreted button and terminate the lives of Khorshid and seven other teens. For what purpose – a few lines of press going out into a world despairing, despite best efforts, about how to solve the unsolvable in the world’s trouble spots.
I was not in an overly positive mood to start with. Earlier in the day I’d received a missive from my bank outlining to me the advantages of my local branch being closed. If I didn’t wish to travel further to another suburb, I now had the advantage of extra local ATMs, let alone, I was reminded, the pleasures of banking online or by interminable waits at the end of a phone for a non-robotic voice. I’ll miss the smiling faces of the lovely ladies at my local – how many of them will remain with My State elsewhere? How many will be asked to seek other opportunities? I remember a time when banks were there to serve us. The local manager would paternalistically guide his ‘flock’ though the vagaries of life’s great financial decisions, and we presented passbooks to engaging tellers to have our savings meticulously entered. Of course these days we serve the banks in their efforts to squeeze every last possible cent from their now thoroughly pissed-off ‘flock’ of suckers as their tormentors supersize massive profits with the mass sackings of their foot-soldiers. Now it costs me a fee to have a human interface, but I receive pleasure as I am still met with a cheery smile, despite the vicissitudes inflicted on any loyal bank employee. I suppose my branch closure will add to the fat Christmas bonus handed to the unfeeling dronish suit who increased profit margins by ordaining this disappointment. In the scheme of things though this was a miniscule affair compared to the loss of that beautiful young life in far away Afghanistan!
And what has all this to do with the book under review? Well, like this fan of his fiction just now, Seb Faulks has taken the opportunity in ‘A Week in December’ to also have a jolly good rant. I trust he felt purged for the scouring. Also, like yours truly, two of the areas raged against were religious fundamentalism and the wheeler-dealers of world banking. His novel had much to recommend it, but to my mind did not measure up to the others of his oeuvre I had taken pleasure in – ‘On Green Dolphin Street’, ‘Human Traces’ or ‘Engleby’.
Perhaps he cast his net too widely in terms of protagonists as he strove to relate the compacted stories of his seven main characters. Less is often more. Included in the interwoven tangle was the naive Muslim extremist, somewhat older than the aforementioned suicide bomber, but driven to a similar course of action. There was the black, female Underground train driver being held to account for a suicide of another type, and the aimless lawyer committed to look out for her interests. There were two mothers struggling to comprehend and cope with teenagers who did not conform to expectations, family or societal. And there was the odious, vastly greedy banker, playing god with the money of pensioners and third world countries, as he got off on financial games of chess. He had more money than he could spend in scores of lifetimes, but was still addicted to the adrenalin hit of a deal completed, ruining thousands. There were more characters to be had as well through whom the author railed against this world of ours. One rave I did enjoy was curmudgeonly Seb going to town on schooling in these days of political correctness. As I was leaving the public educational system here on my island, I surely did feel that the pendulum was indeed swinging to the students controlling the classroom, and pity the poor teacher, as Faulks richly and vehemently pontificated on! All this accumulation of global issues, though, made for an interweaving of narrative that seemed somewhat overcooked, and just when this reader felt he had a handle on where the author was heading with it all, he changed tact and took us to a far less dismal place – and the book was better for that.
Now said vile banker was into hedge funds for his kicks and, although Faulks manfully attempted to explain the machinations of his Machiavellian deals in layman’s terms, it all made no logical sense (maybe it’s just this peruser being obtuse), and thus it bored and detracted. Similarly most irritating was the example used, that of ‘victims’ with mental illnesses, to knock the mindlessness of most of today’s reality television. The same goes for the computer game that gives one character an escape from mundanity. Take away these reservations and it all adds up to a worthy read and, considering the fate of the gorgeous Khorshid and the delightful young ladies at my local bank branch, there is something very much of a positive that can be taken from ‘A Week in December’. As a counter to those gloomy thoughts I’ll reflect back on Gabriel and Jenni, Hassan and Shahla, all moving their lives together to the promise that shared love can bring. Here Faulks tells us that, despite the venal rich and religious fanaticism working against universal happiness, that is exactly what that simple four letter word brings. Our planet is not such a bad place after all!

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Aug 05, 2012 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this. I thought there were a lot of philosophical/cultural themes that he touches on, and in some cases explores a little: contrasting religious certainty with the apparent vacuousness of modern occidental existence, the demise of the grammar school experiment, material v immaterial, "reality" tv, the role of reading in understanding people etc. I also learnt a good deal. The financial services industry comes in for a battering but at least some of the activity is clearer to me now.
In...more

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May 24, 2012 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Seven characters in seven days. It’s a fun premise, and alongside fond memories of Faulks’ Birdsong, and the fact I hadn’t read any non-fantasy fiction in a while, it’s the main reason A Week in December caught my eye.

When it works, the setup presents deftly flits between the perspectives of seven much-varied souls as their lives cross, Dickens-style, in the week before Christmas 2007. One of the most interesting tales is that of Hassan Al-Rasheed, a disaffected young Muslim whose immigrant fath...more Seven characters in seven days. It’s a fun premise, and alongside fond memories of Faulks’ Birdsong, and the fact I hadn’t read any non-fantasy fiction in a while, it’s the main reason A Week in December caught my eye.

When it works, the setup presents deftly flits between the perspectives of seven much-varied souls as their lives cross, Dickens-style, in the week before Christmas 2007. One of the most interesting tales is that of Hassan Al-Rasheed, a disaffected young Muslim whose immigrant father found his fortune as a pickle magnate. Feeling isolated from society, Hassan found solace in the Koran before gradually being enticed towards the dark world of religious extremism. His gradually explored path towards radicalisation felt authentic and well researched, and he cuts a sympathetic figure despite his status as a would-be terrorist.

Another strong point is Gabriel Northwood, a young lawyer struggling to find work and spending too much time dwelling on the lost love of his life. One of his few cases finds his path crossing with Jenny Fortune, a Tube driver who is increasingly substituting her dull and luckless real life for an addiction to online gaming. The inevitable connection between the melancholic Gabriel and the closed-off but vulnerable Jenny is somewhat predictable but nevertheless sweetly enjoyable.
A side effect of this seven-by-seven approach however is that it really is only as good as the sum of its parts, and each section needs to stand up on its own for the novel to hang together properly. Unfortunately A Week in December falls someway short of this goal, and every finely written and interesting character seems to be balanced by a clumsily written and boring counterweight.

Chief perpetrator is John Veals, an unscrupulous hedge fund manager whose grotesque wealth is matched only by his selfishness. He values the acquisition of money above all things in life, and is clearly meant to symbolise the much-hated financial moguls behind the economic crisis of recent years.

His real purpose though is clearly to display how much research Faulks put into the complicated world of financial trading, and I grew to dread his sections and the seemingly endless explanation of what exactly a hedge fund manager is and why we should hate their ilk. Veals is purposefully written to be both dull and unlikeable, but his narrative lacks any kind of petard-hoist to actually make this avaricious wretch bearable.

Another character who quickly becomes a narrative blight is bitter hack reviewer R Tranter. A failed novelist, Tranter has taken to compensating by penning scathing reviews in an attempt to crush the spirit of authors with better luck. There is little to recommend the spiteful and mean-spirited little man, though unlike Veals he does at least undergo some form of character progression. He unfortunately also happens to be a straw-man of the highest order, which speaks rather poorly of Faulks himself.

Finishing off the seven group of seven, along with the good and the bad are the… meh. Polish footballer Tadeusz “Spike” Borowski seems to have been brought along only to shore up the numbers and does nothing of consequence, while John Veals’ teenage son Finn exists mostly to assist a public service announcement about cannabis and the downward spiral of reality TV.

A number of minor plot threads meanwhile, such as Jenny’s online stalker and Gabriel’s mentally disturbed brother, seem to fizzle out – presumably to make room for more financial babbling on the part of John Veals.

Fortunately Faulks also manages to deliver some rather better delivered pieces of social commentary, including wry jabs at the occasional hypocrisy of the literary world and the increasingly desperate depths plumbed by reality TV.

A Week in December has much to recommend it, telling its share of interesting tales and making many well-placed observations on our modern lives. Regrettably every well-crafted character and salient point has an ungainly and disappointing equivalent that stops the novel from achieving more than a semblance to the Dickensian pedigree it has been labelled w
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Feb 13, 2012 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was waffling between 3 and 4 stars... I really did enjoy this book quite a bit, I'm just not sure how memorable it'll be over time. I think that's partially because I have read so many "ensemble cast" character-based novels recently, where all the characters end up with their lives intertwining, that I'm starting to get them confused. I wonder if the contemporary literature genre is just flush with this type of story structure right now for some reason, or if I'm just particularly drawn to it?...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Stephen Clynes rated it 2 of 5 stars

Sebastian is not good at telling a story. The plot is shallow. You hope it will pick up or be different but it just continues to disappoint. Sebastian tries and teases by suggesting a plot where everything joins up in a climax that may involve a mystery cyclist but those are just distractions in this shallow and badly told story. A Week in December leads you to think there would be an explosive ending - it does not, it peters out into a sob.

I disliked the structure of this novel as it kept movi...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Tim Freeman rated it 3 of 5 stars

Yes I liked it, but overall I was kind of left wandering where the author wanted to go with this novel. Having read much of his earlier work I know he can do better than this although I tend to suspect this was a novel he wanted to say something with - in fact he does kind of beat us over the head with the various iconic characters he uses to make his point. I was also puzzled by his at times amateurish use of substitute names like Goldfarb, Moregain and the such, would not his editor call him o...more

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Sep 29, 2011 Derek Baldwin rated it 3 of 5 stars

The first book I've read by Sebastian Faulks, who is clearly quite a smart and erudite fellow, but perhaps not very keen on rewriting/polishing his text. Swathes of this are lumpen in style, filled with clumsy made-up names that resemble those of real people and entities (Zherie the footballers wife, Parallax the MMPG so clearly modelled on Second Life) and the characters are cardboard cut-outs for the most part.

There's very little wit apart from the recurring motif of a careless cyclist who en...more

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Feb 25, 2011 Sammie rated it 1 of 5 stars

In a word - Disappointing. I liked the idea of this book - covering the overlapping lives of seven people in london over seven days. But the execution of it was poor, particularly when compared to Faulks' previous works.

There was very little chance to feel anything for any of the main characters, they were all just a little too vague. It amuses me that a quote from this very text, a character's assesment of a book she is reading, actually sums up one of my biggest complaints about it - "The wor...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Alistair rated it 1 of 5 stars

this is total crap !
sebastian faulks is a literary lovie and i quite liked Birdsong but how he managed to garner the favourable reviews that litter the back cover god only knows . the reviewers must have been paying back a few favours for a mate . this meant to be a state of the nation novel equivalent to Trollope or Dickens but it turns out to be more like Ben Elton without the humour
if you thought of every cliched character that might feature in such a state of the nation in 2008 sebastian a...more

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Jan 04, 2011 Andrew Smith rated it 3 of 5 stars

The fact that the most finely-drawn character in this book of seven human protagonists is an eighth inanimate individual — the sprawling city of London — might indicate a kind of failing on the author's part, but that would be untrue. It's just that Faulks does such a fine job, with a minimum of deft description, to summon up the sweep of London's neighourhoods that the result is a vivid living and breathing milieu, perfect glue for the varied array of people and situations in this quite wonderf...more The fact that the most finely-drawn character in this book of seven human protagonists is an eighth inanimate individual — the sprawling city of London — might indicate a kind of failing on the author's part, but that would be untrue. It's just that Faulks does such a fine job, with a minimum of deft description, to summon up the sweep of London's neighourhoods that the result is a vivid living and breathing milieu, perfect glue for the varied array of people and situations in this quite wonderful 21st-century novel. Locales range from the distant no-man's-land of Dayton Green (neither central nor suburban), with its "trim houses with their bow windows ... some were in terraces, some in pairs," to the elite streets of Holland Park with houses so large that family members rattle around without every running into each other, too busy getting drunk, or taking drugs, or bent obsessively over glowing computer screens. It displays a huge talent that Faulks, best known for historic novels set in the early 20th Century, is able to breath life into such typical present-day characters, from the self-made Pakistani business man and his extremist would-be terrorist son to the train driver who spends all her free time in the fantasy digital world of the computer game, Parallex, to the grasping stock trader whose fabulously wealthy wife leads an empty shell of a life and whose son is on a path to drugged-out destruction. If I have one quibble about "A Day in December" it's Faulks's almost obsessive need to try and explain the mechanism of dirty trading by the greedy broker. It's clear that the author has done his research (almost too obvious) but he nevertheless still doesn't quite manage to adequately describe the incredibly complicated stock market dealings. I found it best after a few pages to not even try to understand the details, suffice to say the man is up to dirty tricks that stand to net him millions of pounds. As the book proceeds the tension is cranked up, the disparate characters coalesce, and at the end one comes away with a pleasantly satisfying sensation that not only has one read a damn good yarn but that one is totally plugged in to a part of contemporary London life, dispiriting as it can be.
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Jan 04, 2011 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: travelers

This book began slowly, almost painfully. I was convinced the author really had nothing to say, and would say it as slowly as possible. It was literally the middle of the book before I felt involved.

There were, to be sure, a great many one-dimensional characters, not least of which is an uber-Gordon Gekko character. He is loathsome and satisfyingly smaller than life. If he had any additional dimensions, one would be tempted to feel something for him, but one isn’t. I think, in retrospect, that...more

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Dec 26, 2010 Pamela rated it 2 of 5 stars

I had high hopes for this. Loved Birdsong. Enjoyed Charlotte Gray and The Fatal Englishman. The Sunday Times called it a best seller and likened Faulk’s effort to that of Trollope’s The Way We Live Now, a brilliant, wickedly funny and affectionate dissection of English life and people in the nineteenth century. Why? What did they see in this novel that drew them to that conclusion? Sure, Faulks subjects features (reality T.V.) and representative personalities (hedge-fund fiend) of 21st century l...more

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Dec 19, 2010 Simon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Enjoyed this. Covers seven days in the intersecting lives of seven Londoners, including a hedge fund manager, an Islamic terrorist, a literary critic, a Premier League footballer and a Tube driver. The city itself is obviously the thing that brings these people together but it’s strangely transparent in this book so I don’t know whether this is a great ‘London’ novel. Instead, it read to me like a kind of universal rant/meditation by the author, with each character chosen to voice or personify a...more

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Nov 30, 2010 Glenys rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Glenys by: Patrice

I loved this book, a timely, well-plotted, acutely observed intertwining of several lives over one week, and a biting, almost vituperative satire on 'the way we live now'. Indeed in the evil genius of the book, John Veals, there are echoes of Augustus Melmotte, the financier in Trollope's novel of that name. This is a wonderful characterisation of an emotionally disabled man who lives to manipulate the markets, taking short positions on a bank 'too big to fail' and engineering a situation that c...more

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Jun 23, 2010 Hellion rated it 1 of 5 stars

I read a lot, and my reading matter is many and varied, the worst I ever feel about a book is 'It was OK' BUT, I absolutely loathed this book! There was no depth to the characters and they were unreal in the extreme, they felt as though he'd taken every cliche about different social groups/occupations and amalgamated them in to his characters - and the result was weak and unrealistic. The intertwining storylines felt as though they were leading up to a big event which would change the characters...more

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Jan 13, 2010 Jeanette rated it 4 of 5 stars

Faulks book provides a social commentary on London in December 2007. The reader meets a vindictive book reviewer failed novelist, a disillusioned Islamic youth turned potential suicide bomber, a young woman who is a tube driver and an addict to Parallex, an alternative world computer game site, Gabriel, a struggling lawyer, his brother who is a hospital schizophrenic who hears voices telling him that he will burn in hell if he doesn't do as the voice says, a hedge fund manager and his dysfunctio...more Faulks book provides a social commentary on London in December 2007. The reader meets a vindictive book reviewer failed novelist, a disillusioned Islamic youth turned potential suicide bomber, a young woman who is a tube driver and an addict to Parallex, an alternative world computer game site, Gabriel, a struggling lawyer, his brother who is a hospital schizophrenic who hears voices telling him that he will burn in hell if he doesn't do as the voice says, a hedge fund manager and his dysfunctional family, etc.

Faulks provides a devastating analysis of the lives of his characters as he comments on the London of 2007. I found some of his comments right on: "Five people he tried to stop in the bridge; five times he moved forward and tried to intercept these passing strangers, and five times he found them wrapped in private music or talking into hands-free microphones concealed in their coats.
"They were talking to the air. All were listening to voices, talking back, but there were no people. He was the only real voice on the bridge, but the only one to whom no one would listen."
In another section one of the characters comments on wealth and how most of the people invited to the dinner party were invited because they were the super wealthy. All had more money than they could spend in one life time, but that wasn't important. The game was amassing as much wealth as possible.
As the reader becomes acquainted with each of these characters in various degrees, s/he also is aware from the beginning that story is building towards the fateful dinner party on Saturday, December 22.
Some characters are better developed than others, but I found they all contributed to the development of the novel and it's message. I did find much of the sections on banking, investments and the manipulations around the markets and investing, a bit difficult to understand.
I found the novel to be dense with social comment and am looking forward to discussing this novel with others.

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Nov 19, 2009 Melanie Peake rated it 2 of 5 stars

I have read two other books by Sebastian Faulks, and my verdict has always been the same - "it was alright...." ! No change with this one, but I must admit, it kept me interested enough to keep reading to the end,*SPOILER ALERT!* to a denouement that actually failed to appear......
One thing that annoyed me was the use of obvious alternative names for people and popular culture phenomena that are recognisable to us. If you are setting a novel in the present day (it's set in 2007, which is as near...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Nigel rated it 4 of 5 stars

An enjoyable book portraying the twenty first century world we live in. What struck me was the different "realities" that different people live in: the hedge fund manager who only sees money and ways to make more of it ignoring the consequences; the disillusioned young Muslim who has bought into the certainty of fundamentalism; the academic whose life revolves around literature; and the extreme of the psychotic brother of one of the main characters. In addition to these Faulks weaves into the na...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Rowena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So I picked up this book at the Gatwick airport as I was leaving London. It's my first Faulks. I was sad and all I could do to assuage my grief was book shop. I might have gone overboard. ANYWAY, this was an interesting little book. A Week in December follows the chronicles of 7-odd Londoners and the ways their lives directly and indirectly intersect. Much scathing social commentary is directed at hedge funds, reality shows, religion, book critics, the disgustingly rich, etc.

I wish I could give...more

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About Sebastian Faulks

Faulks is the son of Pamela (Lawless) and Peter Ronald Faulks, a Berkshire solicitor who later became a judge. He grew up in Newbury. His mother was both cultured and highly strung. She introduced him to reading and music at a young age. Her own mother, from whom she was estranged, had been an actress in repertory. His father was a company commander in the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, in which h...more Faulks is the son of Pamela (Lawless) and Peter Ronald Faulks, a Berkshire solicitor who later became a judge. He grew up in Newbury. His mother was both cultured and highly strung. She introduced him to reading and music at a young age. Her own mother, from whom she was estranged, had been an actress in repertory. His father was a company commander in the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, in which he served from 1939 to 1946. He saw action in Holland, France, Tunisia, Italy (at the Anzio landings), Syria and Palestine. He was wounded three times and awarded an immediate MC after an action against the Hermann Goering Parachute Troops in North Africa in 1942.
His maternal grandfather, Philip Henry Lawless, enlisted in the 1st Battalion, 28th county of London Regiment, otherwise known as The Artists' Rifles in 1914, and served in trench warfare on the Western Front until 1917, when he moved to the 26th Battalion Middlesex Regiment and finished the war in Salonika. He was decorated several times and received the Military Cross in 1918, the standard Victory Medal, the British War Medal and the 1914 Star. He eventually left the Army and returned to work as a wine merchant - his father's original occupation.[2]
His paternal grandfather, Major James Faulks (Major was his name, not a military rank) was an accountant who had previously worked as a schoolmaster at a private boarding school in Tunbridge Wells, while Major's provisions merchant father, William Robert Faulks, supplied dairy products in late Victorian Paddington.[2]
Faulks' father wanted him to become a diplomat. He claims his first ambition was to be a taxi driver until at the age of fifteen, while reading George Orwell, he decided to become a novelist instead. In fact, he is the only member of his paternal family not to be a lawyer; his father and uncle were judges and his brother Edward is a QC specialising in medical negligence.
Faulks was educated at the fee-charging Wellington College and studied English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he won an open exhibition and to which he was elected an honorary fellow in 2007. He took a teaching job at the Dwight-Franklin International School after university while also moving into journalism, becoming a features writer for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and was recruited by the Independent as Literary Editor in 1986. He became the Deputy Editor of the Independent on Sunday before leaving in 1991 to concentrate on writing. He has been a columnist for The Guardian (1992-8) and The Evening Standard (1997-9).
He continues to contribute articles and reviews to a number of newspapers and magazines and to broadcast regularly. He wrote and presented the Channel 4 series Churchill's Secret Army, about the wartime Special Operations Executive (SOE), screened in 1999. Faulks is a team captain on BBC Radio 4's literary quiz The Write Stuff.
Faulks lives with his wife, Veronica (formerly his assistant at The Independent), and their three children William, Holly and Arthur . He works from his study in a top floor flat of a house near Holland Park Avenue, ten minutes from his home, starting work at 10am and finishing at 6pm, regardless of whether he is writing a book or not.
He was appointed a CBE in the Birthday Honours List 2002 for "services to Literature" and he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1994.
Faulks supports West Ham United. He writes about this in "Upton and Other Parks," a contribution to the 1990 football book Saturday's Boys.

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Quotes from A Week in December

“People never explain to you exactly what they think and feel and how their thoughts and feelings work, do they? They don't have time. Or the right words. But that's what books do. It's as though your daily life is a film in the cinema. It can be fun, looking at those pictures. But if you want to know what lies behind the flat screen you have to read a book. That explains it all.” — 27 people liked it

“. . . she read with undifferentiated glee . . .” — 6 people liked it

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