Find out who he’s up against on the Bollinger blog: http://www.experiencebollinger.co.uk/news/

This reader has read and thoroughly enjoyed both. Skippy Dies takes Murray’s writing to the next level and is one of the funniest and touching books I have read in a very long time.

But please intelligent readers, please anyone who is reading this, I beg you to try the book yourselves and not be put off by this misleading review. How Michael can suggest that “the nuances of boys’ school vernacular also seem to elude Murray’s reach” is to me extraordinary . He goes onto say that ” “Von Blowjob, find a dictionary and look up ‘interesting’” is ” more of an imagined playground insult than something a fifteen year old would actually say” – Great saints above Mikey, are you concerned that Picasso’s horse didnt look like photographs of horses that you know ? Get a grip man. Murray’s evocation of the schoolboy mindset and indeed the vernacular in the context of his novel’s world, is brilliant and extremely funny. I accept that its a great deal funnier and more brilliant than real life usually is -but can we forgive him this readers?

It’s a masterful work…yes with problems…not the zeugmas and tropes, mere pedantries Mick here seizes upon like a disappointed schoolmaster …but the work very funny and profoundly moving.