Pistache （Sebastian Faulks）

Short parodies of English literature's greats. From James Joyce’s best man’s speech to Thomas Hardy’s football report, Samuel Beckett's monologue for Ronnie Corbett and John Updike’s cookery book - the work of the great and the not-so-great is here sent up with little hope of coming down. Most of these pieces began their life on Radio Four’s The Write Stuff, but have been retooled for the printed page. 
 
Others, such as Martin Amis’s first day at Hogwarts, have been written specially for this book. Philip Larkin’s Lines in Celebration of the Queen Mother’s 115th Birthday, first banned, then cut by the BBC, appears in its entirety for the first time. This is not a book for the faint-hearted or the deferential. It is a book for the bedside table of someone you would like to sleep with.
 
Sebastian Faulks(1953-), and grew up in Newbury, the son of a judge and a repertory actress. He attended Wellington College and studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, although he didn’t enjoy attending either institution. Cambridge in the 70s was still quite male-dominated, and he says that you had to cycle about 5 miles to meet a girl. He was the first literary editor of “The Independent”, and then went on to become deputy editor of “The Sunday Independent”. Sebastian Faulks was awarded the CBE in 2002. He and his family live in London.