Winner – Best Memoir at the East Anglian Book Awards
I had met a lot of special people through newsagents’ windows, and spent many enjoyable days with them. I found out about a community I never knew existed, the heart of rural Britain. I learned that everyone had a story to tell, and that people who live very ordinary lives are much more fascinating than explorers or pop stars.
John Osborne’s second book is a comic voyage through small-town Britain via the ads in newsagents’ windows: lost kittens, personal ads, a second-hand bike for sale, yoga classes … John at first uses the ads in newsagents’ windows to buy practical things like a bed and a settee. But on impulse one day he replies to an advert for a psychic masseur named Lucy, who tells him some startling home-truths as he sits on her settee in his pants. So begins a year of self-discovery and a wild obsession with newsagents’ windows, which take John to a shoe-exhibition, to an Alan Ayckbourn play, to a wrestling match. He finds himself the owner of a man’s entire video collection, a second-hand bike, a clapped-out Ford Escort – and discovers a community of a bygone age. Looking to improve his German, he meets a pretty German girl named Leni …
Hilarious and thought-provoking, The Newsagent’s Window restores our faith – in our fellow human beings, in a world without ebay – and reveals the odd things that can happen if you let newsagents’ windows dictate your day.
John Osborne 