An Observer book of the year

HAUNTED By endless tiny humiliations.

STRUGGLING To resurrect the corpse of his literary career.

ENSNARED In a loving yet bamboozling marriage.

A man at odds with the universe, Anthony McGowan stumbles from one improbable fiasco to the next. On the mean streets of West Hampstead he reflects upon all that is at the heart of life itself - socks with holes, underwhelming packed lunches, broken washing machines, Kierkegaard, liver salts, British Library eccentricities and disapproving ladies on trains. In this chronicle of one man's daily failures and disappointments, McGowan can't help but speak his mind - with cringeworthy and hilarious results.