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Leisure
by: Kevin Sampson

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780099285151
ISBN: 0099285150
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Pages: 238
Publication Date: March 01, 2001
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage
Sales Rank: 441839

Related Items:

Powder: An Everyday Story of Rock'n'roll Folk

Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Leisure, the follow-up to Powder , is Kevin Sampson's third novel and the ultimate beach holiday read as it follows the antics of a group of English holidaymakers on the Costa del Sol. The book opens with "Pasternack. A fat bloke", otherwise known as "Doctor Fun", downing yards of ale in a Stockport pub with his mates Tom, Mickey, and Matt, who "looked like the rugby player Jeremy Guscott", all of them preparing for "one glorious week of madness" in Spain. Their week abroad is fated to become entangled with Hilary and Shaun, travelling to the same hotel. Both are desperately trying to save their marriage, on the rocks since Shaun's fall from a building site, which has impaired his sound and vision. As everyone settles into a round of drinks, clubs, drugs and sex, cracks begin to appear in the midst of all the fun. Pasternack, pursued by Millie from Nijmegen, who "looks like a well-made Brooke Shields", confesses to being a virgin, and Hilary's sexual frustration with Shaun reaches a crescendo with the rather dumb but appealingly misunderstood Matt.

Leisure is full of very funny moments, as Shaun is mistaken for Jesus by a group of Spanish nuns, and Pasternack summons up his sexual courage with a cocktail of ecstasy and viagra, stomping his way through Abba and Madness, but the book's more lyrical moments of seriousness fall rather flat. It's much better if you take it as a funny fantasy about getting everything you want (and sometimes even a bit more than you bargained for) from your package holiday in the sun. --Jerry Brotton.

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Leisure is Kevin Sampson's third novel, the follow-up to Powder, and is the ultimate beach holiday read, as it follows the antics of a group of English holidaymakers on the Costa del Sol. The book opens with "Pasternack. A fat bloke", otherwise known as "Doctor Fun", downing yards of ale in a Stockport pub with his mates Tom, Mickey, and Matt, who "looked like the rugby player Jeremy Guscott", all of them preparing for "one glorious week of madness" in Spain. Their week abroad is fated to become entangled with Hilary and Shaun, travelling to the same hotel. Both are desperately trying to save their marriage, on the rocks since Shaun's fall from a building site, which has impaired his sound and vision. As everyone settles into a round of drinks, clubs, drugs and sex, cracks begin to appear in the midst of all the fun. Pasternack, pursued by Millie from Nijmegen, who "looks like a well-made Brooke Shields", confesses to being a virgin, and Hilary's sexual frustration with Shaun reaches a crescendo with the rather dumb but appealingly misunderstood Matt.

Leisure is full of very funny moments, as Shaun is mistaken for Jesus by a group of Spanish nuns, and Pasternack summons up his sexual courage with a cocktail of ecstasy and viagra, stomping his way through Abba and Madness, but the book's more lyrical moments of seriousness fall rather flat. It's much better if you take it as a funny fantasy about getting everything you want (and sometimes even a bit more than you bargained for) from your package holiday in the sun. --Jerry Brotton.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- suprising depth and very well written
Bought this book having been very impressed with Awaydays, and if anything Kevin Sampsons writing is improving, i found awaydays a deeper book in some ways, but this is more interesting, as there is a lot going on under the surface. There are a lot of different ideas and areas being explored within this fairly simple intertwined narrative.
I think Sampsons writing is tight and lends very well to his characters, he has half a dozen excellent main characters here who turn out to be very complex in their own ways.
The Shaun and pastie characters are excellent, you cant help but root for them.
A much bigger package than id expected, read in one sitting

Rating:

- Not just a holiday read
Ideal for reading whilst lazing by a pool soaking up the sun, this book isn't just a holiday read.

Kevin Sampson's book captures the "Brits Abroad" hedonistic mentality but also shows the cultural worth of venturing abroad. The setting is evoked wonderfully and the characters are rich and well-drawn.

Ultimately, the story is a triumph of the underdog as those characters that appear to be sad losers at the start of the book end up with the most, and those that appear to have the most going for them let it all slip away.

Depending on who you "root" for in the book you'll either find the ending sad or really uplifting, but personally I enjoyed seeing the underdogs triumph.

Another top book from Kevin ... Read More:

Rating:

- Not as good as I had hoped
I was quite looking forward to reading this novel after all the rave reviews I'd seen but sadly it left me cold. I didn't think it was very funny and it didn't evoke that summer holiday feel for me at all. I felt the main characters were underdeveloped and largely uninteresting. In some ways it's the perfect holiday book because it's totally undemanding and easy to read but it just isn't funny enough. I thought there were too many overlong boring bits and the few vaguely funny bits were just rushed through. I'm sure they are better books about going on hoilday.

Rating:

- Hugely disappointing after Awaydays and Powder
Sampson's first two novels - seventies Tranmere hooligan coming-of-age story Awaydays and Britpop saga Powder - are two of the funniest, most acerbic books I've read for a long time. I wanted Leisure to be more of the same. Alas, it wasn't.

The writing lacked punch, the characters didn't seem convincing, the plot was contrived... it just wasn't a particularly enjoyable book. I was very disappointed and I hope Sampson returns to the more incisive tone of his earlier work.

Rating:

- A gorgeous piece of travel writing
This is a gorgeous piece of travel writing. The descriptions of Andalucia are poetic and compelling. Don't be mislead by the cheesy front cover. Yes Leisure does pay homage to the sun, sea and sex elements of package holidays abroad but beyond that, this is a book which is ultimately about the nature of relationships - The thrill of falling in love, the hopelessness of being in a relationship that has reached it's sell by date and the delusion suffered by thousands of young Brits each year that a dose of sun and sea will miraculously transform their love lives.

Very funny. Sad in places. Just brilliant!!

Books : Leisure