or of 1984 and Animal Farm, Coming Up for Air is the classic, comic novel about the everyday struggles of the common man and a satiric look at the trappings of middle-class suburbia.

George "Tubby" Bowling is a middle-aged insurance salesman, a job at which he grimly excels, dutifully paying the mortgage on an average English suburban row house, and supporting an ungrateful family. As the years roll by, he comes to feel like a hostage to his wife and children, regarding them as wardens and himself as a prisoner.

One day, after winning some money from a bet at the races, George steals away from his family to visit the village where he grew up, to fish for carp in a pool he remembers from thirty years before. The pool, alas, is gone, the village has changed beyond recognition, and the principal event of his holiday is an accidental bombing by the RAF--the perfect ending to his failed escape.

"A work of rare vigor and imagination."--New York Herald-Tribune Book Review