Brother of the More Famous Jack
- Author Barbara Trapido
- Narrator Amy Noble
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date 18 July 2024
- Run Time 8 hours and 5 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Family life fiction, Fiction: general and literary, Narrative theme: Coming of age.
This book is not purchasable in your country. Please select another book.
Flexible Pricing & Rewards For Listening
At xigxag, the more you read, the less you pay* on select audiobook and x-book® titles, as in the table below. Pricing updates automatically in the app and resets one year after your first purchase. And you can always find a selection of brilliant titles available for only $7.95.
*Only the full price titles you buy count toward your personal pricing tier. Full price titles don’t include Listen for Less or other books bought with a voucher or discount code.
Titles Purchased
- 1-5
- 6-10
- 11-15
- 16-20
- Over 20
Price p/Title
- $13.95
- $12.95
- $11.95
- $10.95
- $9.95
Listen to a sample
What to expect
Bloomsbury presents Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido, read by Amy Noble.
**BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime**
________________________
A JOYFUL 40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF A COMING-OF-AGE CLASSIC
________________________
‘There are few modern tales of first love and its disillusions that are as thoroughly realised, as brilliantly lewd, and as hilariously satisfying to men and women of all ages as this one’ – Rachel Cusk
Eighteen-year-old Katherine – bright, stylish, frustratedly suburban – doesn't know how her life will change when the brilliant Jacob Goldman first offers her a place at university. When she enters the Goldmans' rambling bohemian home, presided over by the beatific matriarch Jane, she realises that Jacob and his family are everything she has been waiting for.
But when a romantic entanglement ends in tears, Katherine is forced into exile from the family she loves most. And her journey back into the fold, after more than a decade away, will yield all kinds of delightful surprises...
________________________
‘The perfect book’ – Meg Mason
‘The best possible company in this difficult world’ – Ann Patchett
‘A daisy bomb of joy’ – Maria Semple
‘Funny, charming, teeming with life, and real’ – Nick Hornby
‘I adored it … Redolent of classics like The Constant Nymph with both its true voice and wonderfully sage and sanguine heroine’ – Sophie Dahl
‘One of those books that when people have read it, they just push it into your hands silently: "You have to read this book, you will love this book." There’s no other book I love more’ – Caroline O'Donoghue, Sentimental Garbage
‘Reading it again is as comforting as eating toast and Marmite between clean, fresh sheets’ – Rachel Cooke, Sunday Times
‘Think Brideshead Revisited set in the 1970s, only sexier and much funnier. It kills me that I didn’t read it at university, when I really needed it’ – Meg Rosoff, New Statesman
**BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime**
________________________
A JOYFUL 40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF A COMING-OF-AGE CLASSIC
________________________
‘There are few modern tales of first love and its disillusions that are as thoroughly realised, as brilliantly lewd, and as hilariously satisfying to men and women of all ages as this one’ – Rachel Cusk
Eighteen-year-old Katherine – bright, stylish, frustratedly suburban – doesn't know how her life will change when the brilliant Jacob Goldman first offers her a place at university. When she enters the Goldmans' rambling bohemian home, presided over by the beatific matriarch Jane, she realises that Jacob and his family are everything she has been waiting for.
But when a romantic entanglement ends in tears, Katherine is forced into exile from the family she loves most. And her journey back into the fold, after more than a decade away, will yield all kinds of delightful surprises...
________________________
‘The perfect book’ – Meg Mason
‘The best possible company in this difficult world’ – Ann Patchett
‘A daisy bomb of joy’ – Maria Semple
‘Funny, charming, teeming with life, and real’ – Nick Hornby
‘I adored it … Redolent of classics like The Constant Nymph with both its true voice and wonderfully sage and sanguine heroine’ – Sophie Dahl
‘One of those books that when people have read it, they just push it into your hands silently: "You have to read this book, you will love this book." There’s no other book I love more’ – Caroline O'Donoghue, Sentimental Garbage
‘Reading it again is as comforting as eating toast and Marmite between clean, fresh sheets’ – Rachel Cooke, Sunday Times
‘Think Brideshead Revisited set in the 1970s, only sexier and much funnier. It kills me that I didn’t read it at university, when I really needed it’ – Meg Rosoff, New Statesman
Critics Review
The fiction equivalent of a brisk walk followed by a hot buttered crumpet: fresh, invigorating, comforting and heartening
Few writers give more pleasure and joy to their readers. Trapido has such a gift for seeing the world’s weight so clearly and writing about it so lightly
It is the perfect book. Beautiful, heartbreaking, funny, and utterly ageless. The first time I read it, I knew within pages that Brother of the More Famous Jack was going to become my favourite novel. The second time, that this brilliant, funny, intensely moving work is everything I aspire to as a writer. Every reading since, that devotion to Barbara Trapido is my only true requisite in a friend
Can we talk about Barbara Trapido? I love those books so much … So charming, they’re absolutely gorgeous. For me, reading Barbara Trapido is like entering a entirely different world … I’d recommend everyone read Brother of the More Famous Jack
Still as fresh and funny after all those years; the perfect coming-of-age novel
Why did it take me so long to discover the singular joys of Barbara Trapido's novels? Why, for so many years, had I missed these witty, soulful, heartbreaking, expansive, brilliant tales? What have I been wasting my time doing? Reading books that AREN'T perfect? Never again!
I am wildly jealous of anyone who hasn’t yet read Barbara Trapido. They have yet to discover the joy of her often hilarious and always profound world; they are about to meet her intricate cast of recurring characters; they will soon have those glorious moments of Trapidean epiphany when they realise – oh! – the boy in this book is the child of a woman in that book. There is no-one like Barbara. Buy all her books, quick, and then sit back, crack the spines, and prepare to marvel
Brother of the More Famous Jack is the book we need right now: smart, funny, honest, painful and true. It is the best possible company as we make our way through this difficult world. I love it
A moving, intense, earthy and witty book, both illuminating and extraordinary as a first novel
She is a writer I feel genuinely evangelical about, and I think she's criminally underread. I'd honestly go to Speaker's Corner and stand on a box and read out passages from Brother of the More Famous Jack, such is my love for it
The exuberance, the humour, the gritty toughness and the sadness ... I really love the way she writes
I adored Brother of the More Famous Jack. It is redolent of classics like The Constant Nymph with both its true voice and wonderfully sage and sanguine heroine
Brother of the More Famous Jack is one of the funniest, warmest, sexiest, sharpest novels I’ve ever read. I must have read it a dozen times: I turn to it whenever the world seems drear, for it has such light and such joy in it
Its high spirits are irresistible … the heroine is unstoppable
Perfect characters and dialogue - the most satisfying book I've ever read
A story, like Mansfield Park, of falling in love with a whole family
The style is hectic and passionate, the jokes thick and fast, the emotions full and right, the humanity total and engulfing ... a first fruit to savour and exalt
A very funny book ... A complex and highly polished work ... Barbara Trapido has that rare ability to make her characters respond to small misfortunes and irritations exactly as people do
I've given ... Brother of the More Famous Jack to dozens of people, and like me, they fall rapturously in love with Trapido's breezy, raunchy and unsentimental style
A sort of bohemian Brideshead Revisited
Very funny, very English, very sad
A highly promising debut – fast, inventive, funny
This is a first novel ... but if established writers could get this good on the seventh try, readers would be the richer for it ... What a lovely novel – charming, intelligent and a happy ending too. Barbara Trapido, where have you been?
If you've been looking for a modern love story that shines with off-beat charm and sprightly intelligence – not to mention elegance of style – take heart ... This brief account cannot do justice to the wry, civilized tone and understated wit that lights up Trapido’s writing
A pleasure … full of excellent things, enormously exuberant, carried along for the most part on vivid dialogue for which Ms Trapido has an uncannily perceptive ear
More from the same
About xigxag
Experience the best audiobooks with xigxag, an innovative and user-friendly audiobook platform designed for seamless discovery, purchase, and enjoyment of your favorite titles. Our flexible pricing model offers bestselling audiobooks for less, providing affordable prices and the best audiobook deals without requiring a subscription. Perfect for gifting, xigxag also features convenient audiobook gift cards and in-app audiobook gifting options.
Beyond the listening experience, xigxag stands as an exciting alternative to big tech, embodying a strong commitment to sustainability and ethical practices. As the only B Corp certified UK audiobook service, we ensure a guilt-free listening experience from a leader in audiobook innovation.
Effortlessly search audiobooks, access honest audiobook reviews that evaluate both the content and narration, and easily discover hidden gems. Whether you prefer to download or stream top audiobook titles, xigxag provides the best possible listening experience anytime, anywhere, on the UK’s best independent audiobook app. Discover the future of audiobooks today.