Title: Less
Author: Andrew Sean Greer
Genre: Contemporary
Format: Paperback
Date of Publication: 22nd May 2018
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
ISBN13: 9780349143590
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Who says you can’t run away from your problems?
Arthur Less is a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the post: it is from an ex-boyfriend of nine years who is engaged to someone else. Arthur can’t say yes – it would be too awkward; he can’t say no – it would look like defeat. So he begins to accept the invitations on his desk to half-baked literary events around the world.
From France to India, Germany to Japan, Arthur almost falls in love, almost falls to his death and puts miles between him and the plight he refuses to face. Less is a novel about mishaps, misunderstanding and the depth of the human heart.
Ever ran into an extremely cute kid and wanted to squeeze the life out of her cheeks? Less by Andrew Sean Greer is that kid. Less is the most endearing and adorable book I have ever read. My heart kept bubbling with joy while reading this book.
Though the book is just of 261 pages, some might find it a long read. This book is such that one should read it in a leisurely manner, and so the writing too, even with its long sentences and deep dives into thoughts, is leisurely and calming. I love when there are scenes in a story which are serious situations to the characters but funny to the readers/viewers, and this book has a ton of such scenes. I remember at one point I had to stop reading and do a belly-grabbing laugh for a whole five minutes! There’s another scene in the book which talks about love, and this is the first time ever I felt what being in love feels like while reading a book! This book is not only for entertainment, but also for the wisdom. There’s so much you can learn from this book – love, life, relationships, career.
This book was a wonderful pleasure read and I highly recommend it.
Another plus point – This book has loads of gay characters and I’m loving this variety!
He is the bestselling author of The Story of a Marriage, which The New York Times has called an “inspired, lyrical novel,” and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named one of the best books of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and received a California Book Award.
The child of two scientists, Greer studied writing with Robert Coover and Edmund White at Brown University, where he was the commencement speaker at his own graduation, where his unrehearsed remarks, critiquing Brown’s admissions policies, caused a semi-riot. After years in New York working as a chauffeur, theater tech, television extra and unsuccessful writer, he moved to Missoula, Montana, where he received his Master of Fine Arts from The University of Montana, from where he soon moved to Seattle and two years later to San Francisco where he now lives. He is currently a fellow at the New York Public Library Cullman Center. He is an identical twin.
While in San Francisco, he began to publish in magazines before releasing a collection of his stories, How It Was for Me. His stories have appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New Yorker and other national publications, and have been anthologized most recently in The Book of Other People, and The PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2009. His first novel, The Path of Minor Planets, was published in 2001.