Book description
pistache (pis-tash): a friendly spoof or parody of another's
work. [Deriv uncertain. Possibly a cross between pastiche and
p**stake.]
From Thomas Hardy's football report to Dan Brown's visit to the cash
dispenser, 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 collection.
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 downstairs lavatory.
It is a book for the bedside table of someone you cannot live without.
Sebastian Faulks was born and brought up in Newbury, Berkshire. He
worked in journalism before starting to write books. He is best known
for the French trilogy,
The Girl at the Lion d'Or
,
Birdsong
and
Charlotte
Gray
(1989-1997) and is also the author of a triple biography,
The Fatal Englishman
(1996); a small book of literary parodies,
Pistache
(2006); and the novels
Human
Traces
(2005),
Engleby
(2007) and
A Week in December
(2009). He lives in London with his wife and their three children.
